THE  LIBRARY 

OF 

THE  UNIVERSITY 
OF  CALIFORNIA 

LOS  ANGELES 

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i 
l 

Cerey  MoWillisms 


THE  STORY  OF 
THE  IRISH  NATION 


THE  STORY  OF 

THE  IRISH   NATION 

<        FRANCIS    HACKETT    < 


DRAWINGS  BY 
HARALD TOKSVIG 


JQ    ^£1|^^^^Mmg2&|^ga|^B^H  2O 

ALBERT  AND  CHARLES  BONI  •  NEW  YORK 


Copyright,  1922,  by 
FRANCIS  HACKETT 

Copyright,  1922 
(N.  Y.  WORLD)   BT    PRESS  PUBLISHING  Co. 


Printed  in  U.  S.  A. 


College 
Library 


lio 
Hu 


To 
HERBERT  BAYARD  SWOPE 

When  I  came  to  see  you  just  before  Christmas  you 
asked  me  if  I  could  write  a  history  of  Ireland  in  three 
days.  I  said,  "not  in  three  days  but  in  three  weeks,"  and 
on  this  pure  mechanical  retort  you  told  me  to  go  ahead 
for  the  World.  You  raised  only  one  point :  Do  men  make 
the  epochs,  or  do  epochs  make  the  men?  And  you  flat- 
tered and  impressed  me  by  inquiring  if  I  agreed  with 
Hegel.  Here,  then,  is  the  result,  though  I  had  to  give  it 
more  than  the  heroic  three  weeks.  I  owe  you  much  be- 
cause without  your  superb  confidence  I  should  never  have 
had  the  courage  to  attempt  even  this  popular  story.  So 
let  me  thank  you — and  especially  for  plunging  me  into 
the  history  of  Ireland,  its  "perilous  seas,"  its  "faery  lands 
forlorn." 

F.  H. 

New  York  City, 
March  17,  1922. 


CONTENTS 

CHAPTER  PAGE 

I     THE  GAELIC  PERIOD:  PAGAN 5 

II     THE  GAELIC  PERIOD:  CHRISTIAN  ....  30 

III     CLONTARF  TO  THE  NORMAN  INVASION      .      .  60 

IV     NORMAN  INVASION  TO  HENRY  VIII  ...  84 

V     THE  CONQUEST 106 

VI     THE  CONFISCATIONS 131 

VII     THE  ABYSS 162 

VIII     THE  ANGLO-IRISH  PARLIAMENT     .      .      .      .  189 

IX     THE  UNION  AND  THE  REPEAL  MOVEMENT     .  229 

X     THE  LAND  WAR 261 

XI     THE  COMING  OF  SINN  FEIN 332 

XII     THE  IRISH  REPUBLIC 370 

INDEX 397 


LIST  OF  ILLUSTRATIONS 


PAGE 


Ancient  Irish  Archer,  Kings  and  Harper  .      .      .      .  15 

Great  Cross  of  Monasterboice  .."....'.  45 

T     i_         O  T7      •  A.H 

John  Scotus  Erigena 47 

m.     A   j     i,  r-i.  v  •    ^fft*1*}   i  .A 

The  Ardagh  Chance 50 

mi.       TJ-l   •  r>  -<V3 

The  Vikings  Come   ....  ,/»,..  . .  x  *, ,  -  . 


Ireland— 1171     .      .'.... '^A 

Norman  Soldiers      *!"".''.      .      .      .*•'•*  70 

4  faiT-                                  T           T     '               1                        T     T                                       T  T  T  T  Y  1     -t     s~\ 

Ireland  Under  Henry  V11I      .      .      .      .  ^.      .      .  110 

Hugh  O'Neill     ......      ;   el.9U7   3.b   '.  124 

•n         r*  iv  /-i        c.          j.- 

Pre-Cromwellian  Confiscations 136 

Oliver  Cromwell 147 

Patrick  Sarsfield 159 

William  of  Orange 164 

Henry  Grattan 181 

Parliament  House 188 

Theobald  Wolfe  Tone 204 

Lord  Edward  Fitzgerald 220 

An  Irish   Insurgent  of   1798    .......  223 

Robert  Emmet     . 241 

iz 


x  List  of  Illustrations 

PAGE 

Daniel  O'Connell 248 

John  Mitchel ,      .  263 

William  E.  Gladstone 283 

Charles  Stewart  Parnell 294 

Michael  Davitt   .             298 

John  E.   Redmond 344 

Horace  Plunkett 347 

Arthur   Griffith 359 

James  Connolly 361 

Roger  David  Casement 373 

Padraic  H.  Pearse 376 

Ulster  Showing  Parliamentary  Divisions  ....  379 

Eamon  de   Valera 387 

Michael  Collins 389 


THE  STORY  OF 
THE  IRISH  NATION 


THE  STORY  OF  THE 
'^    IRISH  NATION 

CHAPTER  I 

THE  GAELIC   PERIOD:  PAGAN 


ON  a  fine  day  in  the  Wicklow  Mountains  you  can 
survey  half  Ireland.     You  can  look  as  far  north 
as  the  lovely  Mourne  range  in  Ulster,  and  on  the  other 
hand  as  far  south  as  the  tip  of  Wexford,  framed  in  a 
bright  sea. 

To  take  in  the  full  scope  of  the  Irish  story  you  must 
climb  to  some  similar  height  in  imagination,  some  height 
from  which  narrow  boundaries  are  released,  and  the 
prospect  becomes  emotionally  open.  To  find  this  emi- 
nence, it  is  perhaps  best  to  go  back  a  few  thousand 
years.  Here  it  is  no  longer  history,  as  we  know  it 
nationally  and  politically,  that  takes  us  by  the  hand. 
It  is  the  much  calmer  genius  of  science. 


The  Story  of  the  Irish  Nation 

From  this  remote  period  one  can  construct  no  cer- 
tain narrative.  There  is  only  the  wavering  accent  of 
tradition,  the  hint  of  geology  and  anthropology,  the 
literal  "footprints  on  the  sands  of  time."  But  by 
great  luck  we  happen  to  have  preserved  in  Gaelic  the 
oldest  existing  body  of  Northern  literature.  From  this 
literature  we  are  able  to  judge  or  guess  at  the  types  of 
men  who  stand  on  the  sky-line  of  Irish  history. 

This  Gaelic  past  is  of  intense  interest,  not  only  be- 
cause so  many  records  and  memorials  of  it  exist,  but 
because  the  Irish  people  to-day  are  in  such  vivid  rela- 
tion to  their  past.  Like  all  invaded  and  suppressed 
peoples,  they  have  been  repeatedly  informed  that  their 
past  is  wild,  obscure,  and  barbaric ;  they  have  been 
encouraged  to  forget  it.  But  the  past  swings  the  fu- 
ture into  being.  The  present  key  to  Ireland  is  in  the 
Gaelic  period  which  flourished  so  nobly  in  pagan  times, 
and  so  generously  in  the  Christian  period  that  followed 
Patrick.  This  civilization,  however,  is  not  mon- 
strously peculiar  or  archaic.  The  Irish  are  not  racially 
separate  from  Europe.  Their  history  is  a  vital  part 
of  European  history.  By  an  accident  of  political  and 
economic  suppression  the  Irish  people  have  been  forced 
for  centuries  to  turn  all  their  energies  into  making  a 
fight  for  survival.  But,  for  centuries,  like  a  river  that 

4 


The  Gaelic  Period:  Pagan 

has  been  dammed  and  forced  out  of  its  channel,  the 
Irish  nation  has  at  last  pushed  through  its  unnatural 
obstacle,  established  its  continuity,  and  begun  to  flow 
in  freedom.  Hence  the  head-waters  of  Gaelic  civiliza- 
tion are  more  important  to  examine  than  ever. 


To  begin  with  the  earlier  human  inhabitants  of  Ire- 
land, it  is  by  no  means  established  that  they  were  all 
of  one  racial  stock.  It  was  dark  Mediterranean  peo- 
ple, we  are  told,  who  worshiped  around  the  glacial 
boulders  which  still  remain.  It  was  broad-headed 
"Beaker"  people  who  erected  the  great  burial  mounds 
and  laboriously  decorated  the  memorial  stones.  These 
prehistoric  inhabitants  of  Ireland  are  hardly  dis- 
cernible. They  are  vaguely  known  as  Iberians  and  as 
Picts. 

Descendants  of  early  tribes — wiry,  black- haired 
Sicilian-like — are  still  to  be  met  in  stony  Connacht. 
Perhaps  these  are  "Iberians."  Once  it  was  supposed 
that  the  famous  chronologies  of  the  pagan  kings  had 
historical  value  and  gave  a  clue  to  the  pre-Celtic  Irish, 
but  it  now  appears  that  their  lists  of  dates  and  mon- 
archs  were  compiled  on  the  model  of  the  Old  Testa- 
ment after  Christianity  had  come  to  Ireland.  But 

5 


The  Story  of  the  Irish  Nation 

much  is  to  be  inferred  from  the  unwritten  records — 
from  the  burial  mounds  and  the  big  memorial  stones 
and  the  Druidical  circles  which  are  still,  to  our  won- 
derment, sprinkled  over  Ireland.  On  a  stone  at  New 
Grange  there  is  to  be  seen  the  spiral  that  came  from 
the  ^Egean,  traced  by  some  pre-Celtic  hand  about  1500 
B.  c.  Near-by  in  royal  Meath  are  the  many  hillocks 
which  the  fear  and  awe  of  a  later  age  raised  to  the  Old 
Men.  Under  a  seventy-foot  mound  at  New  Grange, 
with  a  circle  of  stones  outside,  one  may  now  climb 
down  to  the  mysterious  set  of  chambers  in  which  the 
pre-Celtic  chiefs  were  first  buried.  Here,  up  to  the 
time  of  Christianity,  the  pagan  kings  were  laid,  some- 
times in  urns  and  sometimes  lengthwise  and  sometimes 
standing  up,  in  full  armor  and  face  toward  the  enemy. 

The  early  race  of  men  came  to  be  called  Firbolg,  or 
"men  of  the  bags."  In  these  bags,  it  is  recorded,  the 
Greeks,  so-called,  compelled  the  Firbolg  to  haul  loam 
for  their  hillside  gardens.  Revolting  against  their 
slavery,  the  Firbolg  escaped  from  their  Mediterranean 
masters,  making  boats  out  of  their  bags. 

However  dim  this  legend,  the  first  man  of  the  pres- 
ent surviving  type  certainly  came  to  Ireland  oversea, 
so  one  may  fairly  picture  the  Firbolg  sailing  to  their 
new  country  as  Lucan  pictured  the  Briton : 

6 


The  Gaelic  Period:  Pagan 

The  moistened  osier  of  the  hoary  willow 

Is  woven  first  into  a  little  boat; 
Then,  clothed  in  bullock's  hide,  upon  the  billow 
Of  a  proud  river  lightly  doth  it  float 

Under  the  waterman: 
So  on  the  lakes  of  overswelling  Po 
Sails  the  Venetian;  and  the  Briton  so 
On  the  outspread  ocean. 

Here,  as  so  often,  the  poet  is  the  antique  historian. 
On  the  west  coast  of  Ireland  the  little  boat  "clothed 
in  bullock's  hide"  is  still  in  use. 

But  there  are  other  memorials  of  the  bagmen. 
There  is  a  legend  that  they  fought  a  great  battle  for 
survival  against  powerful  new-comers  in  County  Mayo, 
near  Cong.  On  this  ground  to-day  there  are  five  groups 
of  stone  circles,  besides  a  number  of  burial  cairns, 
which  may  indicate  a  battle-field  or  simply  a  cemetery. 
One  of  these  cairns,  however,  has  always  been  known 
as  the  "Cairn  of  the  One  Man."  Eochy,  the  king  of 
the  Firbolg,  was  bathing  in  the  opening  of  an  under- 
ground river  that  still  connects  Lough  Mask  and 
Lough  Corrib.  Three  of  the  enemy  came  upon  him 
and  demanded  his  surrender,  but  before  they  had  taken 
him  his  own  body-servant  arrived  and,  at  the  cost  of 
his  life,  fought  and  slew  all  three.  The  legend  declares 
that  in  this  "Cairn  of  the  One  Man,"  the  king,  with 
great  honor,  buried  his  servant.  And  when  this  grave 
was  opened,  in  the  middle  of  last  century,  by  Sir  Wil- 

7 


The  Story  of  the  Irish  Nation 

liam  Wilde,  father  of  Oscar  Wilde,  a  single  urn  was 
found  inside  which  once  had  held  a  man's  bones. 

The  Firbolg,  then,  were  the  primitive  stock,  and 
when  the  Celts  or  Gaels  came  oversea  to  Ireland  about 
350  B.  c.  (in  the  so-called  Iron  Age),  they  were  met, 
as  Pilgrim  Fathers  always  seem  to  be  met,  by  a  group 
of  "natives."  These  natives  of  350  B.  c.  have  left  no 
trace  whatever  of  their  language  in  Ireland,  and  no 
certain  picture  of  their  appearance  and  social  habit, 
but  enough  is  known  about  them  to  make  it  clear  that 
they  were  definitely  less  far  advanced  than  the  fighting 
Celts  to  whom  they  succumbed. 

Almost  immediately  after  the  arrival  of  the  Celts, 
these  older  inhabitants  seem  to  have  become  bottom- 
dog.  The  Celts  were  bigger  men,  they  had  bigger  and 
better  boats,  they  were  better  clad — above  all,  they 
had  better  implements  both  for  fighting  and  working. 
The  result,  in  the  dim  age  of  which  we  speak,  was  the 
subjection  of  the  early  tribes. 


Who  were  the  Celts?  They  were  a  Nordic  people, 
sprung  from  southeast  of  the  Baltic.  Some  recent 
commentators,  not  without  political  bias,  have  denied 
that  the  Irish  have  ever  had  Celtic  antecedents.  They 

8 


The  Gaelic  Period:  Pagan 

assert  that  the  invaders  of  350  u.  c.  were  Alpine  folk, 
round-headed  and  tall  and  fair ;  more  primitive  than  the 
Nordic  type,  though  "plastic  and  imaginative  and  sym- 
pathetic." But  the  evidence  of  race,  of  the  Gaelic 
language,  and  of  the  Latin  classics  points  to  the  inclu- 
sion of  Ireland  within  the  range  of  that  Celtic  expan- 
sion which  took  place  in  the  fourth  century  B.  c. 

The  Firbolg,  however,  were  not  exterminated  by  the 
Celts  or  Gaels  who  came  in  the  fourth  century  before 
Christ.  Although  it  is  certain  from  all  the  memorials 
of  the  North  that  these  Gaelic  contemporaries  of  the 
civilized  Greeks  were  some  hundreds  of  years  behind 
the  Greeks  in  culture,  it  is  also  certain  that  their  state 
of  culture  was  not  primitive.  They  were  far  enough 
along,  at  any  rate,  to  tax  their  subject  peoples.  But 
they  did  not  kill  off  the  Firbolg.  What  happened  to 
the  brave  but  less  advanced  type  may,  in  a  plain  image, 
be  suggested  by  the  survival  of  frame  dwellings  in  a 
modern  city  like  New  York.  Even  latterly  a  single 
frame  dwelling  may  stand  next  to  a  sky-scraper,  while 
in  outlying  districts  the  frame  dwellings  may  persist 
in  groups.  The  erection  of  the  brownstone  type  of 
house  suggests  a  later  incursion — say  the  Norse — and 
the  survival  of  this  type  in  a  variety  of  modifications 
and  disguises  indicates  what  may  happen  even  with 

9 


The  Story  of  the  Irish  Nation 

tenements  of  stone.  As  to  the  succession  of  human 
types,  one  thing  seems  clear;  nothing,  not  even  the 
skull,  is  unchangeable  in  size  or  shape,  and  too  much 
may  be  inferred  on  the  hypothesis  that  bone  is  fixed, 
like  cast-iron.  But  history  and  tradition  in  Ireland 
do  indicate  that  the  Firbolg  was  subordinated,  even 
though  he  was  valued  as  a  fighting  conscript  and  gave 
the  Heroic  Cycles  some  of  their  noblest  figures.  The 
Firbolg  generally  was  pushed  into  the  hills,  into  the 
woods,  into  the  less  desirable  lands  and  the  less  desir- 
able work.  Still,  because  his  property  descended 
through  the  female  line,  the  Gael  not  only  fought  his 
way  but  married  his  way  into  supremacy:  he  took  the 
Firbolg  chieftainess  to  wife,  and  then  her  property 
went  to  the  Gaelic  sept  in  the  natural  course  of  descent. 
For  the  Gael  came  to  Ireland  with  social  ideas  consid- 
erably in  advance  of  those  matriarchal  tribes  who  at 
that  time  supplied  the  human  groundwork  of  the  Brit- 
ish Isles.  The  Gael,  we  may  assume  as  certain,  was 
of  the  common  Northern  stock  which  is  the  racial  basis 
of  modern  France,  Belgium  and  Germany.  And  prob- 
ably the  clearest  way  to  conceive  the  Irish  nation  is 
as  part  of  this  vast  Northern  adventure  which  became 
possible  once  the  later  inhabitants  learned  to  use  iron. 
The  conquest  of  the  Firbolg  *by  the  Gael  is  now 

10 


The  Gaelic  Period:  Pagan 

viewed  with  equanimity  by  all  Irish  historians.  Yet 
historically  speaking,  the  Gael  was  a  ruthless  oppres- 
sor. He  belittled  and  misrepresented  the  people  whom 
he  conquered.  It  is  a  pity  we  do  not  possess  a  Firbolg 
history  of  the  Gael. 

The  fact  that  he  was  so  capable  of  conquest  and 
oppression  links  him  with  northen  Europe.  And  his- 
torically it  is  desirable  to  remember  the  European — • 
Southeast  Baltic — cradle  of  the  Gael,  because  for  many 
centuries  the  Gael  continued  to  be  an  element  in  the 
life  of  the  Continent.  It  is  easy  to  see,  in  our  own 
time,  how  the  whole  fortune  of  a  modern  people  may 
change  in  a  few  years,  how  their  social  margin  may  be 
wiped  out  and  their  main  fight  become  the  primitive 
fight  to  survive.  That  was  the  case  of  the  Irish  Gael 
after  1600  A.  D.,  and  to  a  great  extent  after  1200. 
But  at  the  time  when  the  Continent  of  Europe  had 
the  least  cultural  margin  of  its  own,  in  the  chaos  of 
the  fifth  and  sixth  centuries,  it  was  the  Irish  Gael's 
turn  to  contribute.  During  that  period,  as  a  conse- 
quence of  the  conversion  by  St.  Patrick,  the  Gael  was 
a  supreme  factor  in  the  life  of  the  Continent.  It  is 
impossible,  on  this  account,  to  comprehend  the  true 
story  of  the  Irish  nation  unless  one  keeps  realizing  the 
fluidity  of  boundaries  that  now  seem  to  be  fixed  and 

11 


The  Story  of  the  Irish  Nation 

the  flexibility  of  channels  that  now  seem  to  be  rigid. 
The  Gael  is  a  European  not  only  in  stock  but  in  cul- 
tural history.  To  think  of  him  as  separate  and  iso- 
lated is  to  make  him  unintelligible. 


To  return  to  350  B.  c.  The  physical  Ireland  to 
which  the  Gaels  pushed  forward  under  Continental  pres- 
sure was  a  fair,  fertile  land,  with  probably  the  same 
moist  climate  it  has  to-day.  Like  the  rest  of  the 
Northern  world,  it  swarmed  with  forest.  When  the 
Picts  came  Meath  alone  seems  to  have  been  cleared. 
In  the  shade  of  its  great  woods  of  oak  and  ash  and 
hazel  and  holly,  the  fox,  the  red  wolf,  the  boar,  the  bear, 
the  deer,  and  perhaps  the  elk  were  still  at  large.  But 
one  may  suppose  that  the  Gaels  were  rejoiced  to  find 
grassy  plateaus  from  which  they  edged  the  Firbolg 
away  ;  and  clear  rivers  leaping  with  salmon,  and  "fishy 
pools,"  and  sandy  shores  where  boats  could  easily  be 
beached.  The  wild  swan,  we  may  imagine,  swam  in 
the  silences  of  inland  lakes.  The  wild  geese  flew  over 
Ireland  on  their  journey  south.  On  high  hills  there 
were  places  for  Druid  worship  and  sacrifice,  and  on  a 
plain  in  Cavan  a  place  for  the  idol  Cromm  Cruach, 
god  of  the  sun,  whom  the  pagan  multitudes  adored. 

12 


The  Gaelic  Period:  Pagan 

A  very  old  Gaelic  poem,  ascribed  to  Finn  mac  Cool 
(Finn  mac  Cumhail),  may  be  quoted  to  suggest  the 
country  that  surrounded  and  delighted  the  Gael. 
"May-Day,  delightful  time!  How  beautiful  the  color; 
the  blackbirds  sing  their  full  lay;  would  that  Leahy 
(Laighaig)  were  here!  The  cuckoos  sing  in  constant 
strains.  How  welcome  is  the  ever-noble  brilliance  of 
the  seasons !  On  the  margin  of  the  branching  woods 
the  summer  swallows  skim  the  stream.  The  swift  horses 
seek  the  pool.  The  heath  spreads  out  its  long  hair,  the 
weak,  fair  bog-down  grows.  Sudden  consternation  at- 
tacks the  signs;  the  planets,  in  their  courses  running, 
exert  an  influence ;  the  sea  is  lulled  to  rest,  flowers  cover 
the  earth." 

From  the  Irish  literature  that  now  remains,  thou- 
sands of  pages  of  which  are  still  unpublished  and  many 
not  yet  translated  into  English,  it  is  not  impossible 
to  suppose  the  kind  of  life  which  these  pre-Christian 
groups  enjoyed.  Each  of  these  groups  which  occupied 
the  fair  lands  of  Ireland  circled  socially  round  the  domi- 
nant local  chief  and  his  family.  And  the  group  in 
itself  formed  a  community  with  a  social  structure  which 
was  fairly  proof  against  internal  change.  The  Fir- 
bolg,  in  the  first  place,  seem  to  have  been  in  most  cases 
"unf  ree."  They  were  not  slaves ;  that  lot  was  reserved 

13 


The  Story  of  the  Irish  Nation 

for  the  males  and  females  who  were  captured  in  raids 
or  for  the  general  captives  of  war.  But  the  Firbolg, 
excellent  fighters  though  they  were,  formed  subject 
communities  to  do  the  mechanical  work  which  the  pas- 
toral Gaels  apparently  scorned,  and  to  pay  tribute, 
after  the  fashion  of  subject  communities.  The  bronze 
rivet-folk,  the  shield-folk,  the  chariot-folk,  the  wheel- 
folk,  the  plow-folk,  were  castes  of  Firbolg,  and  it  is 
suggested  that  the  tameless  tinkers  of  Ireland  to-day 
may  be  a  survival  of  this  type  of  community  life. 
Everywhere,  except  in  Ossory  and  in  Down  and  An- 
trim, the  Firbolg  succumbed.  But  besides  the  "un- 
free"  Firbolg,  with  their  fairs  and  possible  exchange  of 
wives,  there  were  serfs  who  were  too  poor  to  own  cattle. 
They  merely  had  the  use  of  cattle  in  return  for  servi- 
tude. 

Wealth  was  then,  as  now,  in  the  hands  of  a  ruling 
class.  As  the  "pillow-talk"  of  king  and  queen  in  the 
epic  tale  of  the  Raid  of  Cooley  (County  Louth)  in- 
forms us,  wealth  consisted  of  jheep  and  herds,  of  horses 
and  steeds  and  studs,  of  droves  of  swine  "driven  from 
woods  and  shelving  glens  and  wolds,"  of  pails  and  cal- 
drons and  iron-wrought  vessels,  of  jugs  and  eared 
pitchers,  of  apparel  of  kingly  colors — purple  and  blue 
and  black  and  green  and  yellow  and  vari-colored — and 

14 


The  Gaelic  Period:  Pagan 


rings  and  thumb-rings  and  bracelets  and  golden  treas- 
ures, probably  from  the  rich  alluvial  gold  of  Arklow. 
Slave-women,  who  were  worth  three  cows  or  five  bul- 
locks, were  also  part  of  the  wealth  of  that  harsh  Queen 
Maeve  of  Connacht  who  went  to  war  for  a  bull. 


FROM    OLD     FRESCOES     AND 
STONE     SCULPTURE 


Ancient  Irish  Archer,  Kings  and  Harper 


In  this  pastoral  life,  as  might  be  expected,  the  great 
men  were  the  men  of  personal  strength  and  beauty  and 
pride  and  skill.  When  even  the  petty  king  traveled  in 
state  he  was  accompanied  always  by  his  judges  and 
poets,  by  harpers  and  pipe  and  horn  players,  by  jug- 
glers and  fools,  besides  his  soldiers  and  stewards  and 
servants.  Sport  and  hospitality  were  as  much  a  part 
of  his  life  as  war.  His  lawful  occupations,  as  the  old 
rule  laid  them  down  in  later  times,  were  legislation  on 

15 


The  Story  of  the  Irish  Nation 

Monday,  chess  on  Tuesday,  seeing  the  coursing  of 
grayhounds  on  Wednesday,  the  pleasures  of  love  on 
Thursday,  horse-racing  on  Friday,  delivering  judg- 
ment on  Saturday,  and  on  Sunday  feasting  and  ale- 
drinking  and  distributing  ale.  These  activities  have  a 
flavor  of  the  time  and  place  about  them,  and  yet,  with 
the  inclusion  of  the  laying  of  corner-stones,  they  might 
bring  to  mind  the  liipited  sovereignty  of  Edward  VII. 


In  the  habitation  of  Ireland  by  free  Gaels,  their  un- 
free  dependents,  and  their  slaves  there  was  no  immedi- 
ate need  for  a  strong  central  government.  Government 
centralized  for  military  reasons  was  attempted  in  pagan 
times  but  not  secured.  It  was  hard  to  secure  because 
it  was  still  possible  for  compact  political  agencies  like 
the  sept,  or  group  of  kinsmen,  to  be  self-sufficient,  like 
small  shops  before  the  trusts  came.  Now,  looking 
backward,  we  can  see  how  "primitive"  the  Gaelic  septs 
were,  just  as  by  hindsight  it  will  some  day  very  likely 
be  agreed  all  around  that  it  was  wasteful  for  each  rail- 
way in  1922  to  try  to  keep  its  independence.  But  to 
the  Gaels  who  occupied  Ireland  in  pre-Christian  days 
the  main  reason  they  rode  to  Tara  in  their  chariots 
with  their  poets  and  judges  and  retainers  was  to  enjoy 

16 


The  Gaelic  Period:  Pagan 

the  enormous  triennial  assembly  in  a  festival  spirit, 
with  tradition  and  ceremonial  in  their  mind  rather  than 
the  modern  idea  of  representative  government.  The 
hard  political  problems  were  not  central  in  an  age  in 
which  wealth  was  agricultural,  an  age  content  with 
wooden  bridges  or  fords  and  a  few  good  roads  and 
houses  built  from  the  timber  or  wattles  with  which 
Ireland  was  so  well  supplied.  The  really  pressing  con- 
flicts concerned  tangible  wealth  and  provincial  military 
power.  By  what  new  local  combinations  could  a  proud 
and  mettlesome  chief  hope  to  aggrandize  himself  at 
the  expense  of  his  natural  or  acquired  enemies?  That 
was  the  sort  of  problem  that  had  point.  Until  the 
Strangers  came  with  such  strategy  that  they  could 
grip  all  pastoral  Ireland  willy-nilly,  the  need  to  com- 
bine was  not  clear.  When  the  necessity  was  felt  to  be 
actual,  the  Gaels  did  attempt  to  centralize.  Perhaps 
because  they  had  never  lived  in  towns  and  had  there- 
fore missed  the  quick  though  dangerous  adaptability 
that  comes  with  many  contacts  and  easy  associations, 
they  persisted  in  the  old  ways  long  after  the  European 
world  had  learned  new  modes.  This  conservatism, 
joined  with  their  pride  in  the  fighting  character  of 
their  leaders,  was  probably  one  element  in  determining 
their  subsequent  fortunes. 

17 


The  Story  of  the  Irish  Nation 

Another  fact  of  serious  social  consequence,  as  Pro- 
fessor MacNeill  defines,  was  the  way  in  which  the  sept 
or  true  family  or  derbfine  was  organized  in  relation 
to  the  kingship. 

A  derbfine  or  true  family  was  not  grouped  according 
to  the  modern  idea  of  the  married  coupla  and  their  off- 
spring. The  Gaelic  family  took  in  all  the  immediate 
kinsmen  of  four  generations,  the  head  of  the  sept  being 
reckoned  the  great-grandfather,  whether  living  or  not. 
Birth  and  death  were  consequently  of  essential  impor- 
tance to  the  derbfine.  When  the  first  son  was  born  to 
the  fourth  generation  a  new  great-grandfather  was  thus 
created,  and  consequently  a  new  unit  or  derbfine.  When 
any  male  member  of  the  four  generations  died  his  hold- 
ings went  into  the  family  pool  and  were  redivided 
among  every  one  according  to  prescription.  In  case 
of  the  kingship,  any  male  member  of  the  derbfine  was 
in  line  of  succession,  the  monarch  being  elected  by  all 
who  were  eligible.  The  bad  consequence  of  this  law 
of  succession,  as  Professor  MacNeill  points  out,  was 
the  drive  it  gave  to  those  men  whose  fathers  and  grand- 
fathers had  not  held  the  kingship  to  seize  the  kingship 
for  themselves  and  thus  "keep  it  in  the  family." 

There  was  much  conflict  in  early  Irish  history,  and 

18 


The  Gaelic  Period:  Pagan 

most  of  it  sprang  from  this  system.  Powerful  men 
gambled  with  life  rather  than  resign  themselves  to  an 
inferior  role  in  their  family's  district.  And  where  so 
much  depended  on  the  chances  of  mortality,  men's 
minds  naturally  tended  to  elevate  the  value  of  power 
rather  than  the  value  of  life.  To  kill  a  man,  as  with 
all  Aryans,  asked  for  vengeance,  not  justice.  There 
was,  besides,  the  provocation  that  came  to  fighting  men 
from  living  near  other  fighting  men  whose  wealth  con- 
sisted in  cattle  and  sheep.  There  were  innumerable 
disputes,  a  few  entirely  lawless  and  wanton,  but  most 
of  them  due  to  the  lack  of  a  code  supported  by  force 
and  to  the  fierce  personal  partisanships  of  the  septs. 
The  conflicts  of  territorial  chiefs  were  possible  at  any 
time  down  to  the  sixteenth  century.  But  there  were 
long  periods  of  tranquillity  and  order  during  the  whole 
Gaelic  period,  and  at  least  one  great  effort  to  consoli- 
date the  position  of  the  high-king.  A  professional 
soldiery,  with  its  promise  of  order  and  threat  of  domi- 
nance, was  missing  in  Ireland.  It  existed  so  long  as 
the  plundering  of  Britain  and  Gaul  was  profitable. 
But  later  this  fighting  militia  disappeared,  and  with 
it  royal  Tara,  "home  of  the  warrior-bands." 


19 


The  Story  of  the  Irish  Nation 

6 

There  are  many  popular  notions  about  Ireland 
which  are  best  explained  by  reference  to  this  prehistoric 
period  in  which  the  life  of  Ireland  is  simply  the  life  of 
a  congeries  of  small,  comfortable,  prosperous,  belliger- 
ent chieftaincies.  One  is  the  famous  myth  that  a 
handful  of  Spaniards  wrecked  on  the  shores  of  Ireland 
after  the  dispersal  of  the  Armada  became  thereafter 
the  fathers  of  innumerable  and  consistently  black- 
haired  descendants.  These  black-haired  people  are 
now  reckoned  to  come  from  the  Picts  or  Pretani 
(Britanni),  of  whom  Professor  MacNeill  speaks.  An- 
other notion  is  that  which  Lord  Salisbury  indulged 
when  he  spoke  of  the  "Celtic  fringe."  His  image  was 
meant  to  convey  the  fact  that  the  Celtic  traces  in  the 
British  Isles  were  around  the  rim  of  a  territory  which 
some  superior  group  had  wiped  clean.  This  theory, 
supported  by  Rhys,  now  seems  to  be  upset.  The  Hot- 
tentots, the  "miserable  shell-eaters"  of  that  remote  age, 
appear  to  have  been  the  unfortunate  Pretani.  The 
Gaelic  "fringe"  in  western  Britain,  in  Argyllshire,  in 
Wales,  and  in  Cornwall,  was  an  embroidery,  not  a  rem- 
nant. It  came  from  fresh  Irish  settlements  after  the 
collapse  of  Roman  power  in  Britain.  The  classic  name 

20 


The  Gaelic  Period:  Pagan 

for  the  Irish  Gaels  was  Scoti,  or  raiders.  Ireland, 
known  as  Eiru,  Eire,  Iverne,  lerne,  Hibernia,  Ire-land, 
was  also  known  as  Scotia  Major.  (Scotland,  of  course, 
was  Scotia  Minor,  named  after  the  Irish  who  colonized 
and  Christianized  it.)  The  fame  or  ill-fame  of  the 
Irish  Gaels  as  raiders  and  plunderers  traveled  into 
Gaul  as  well  as  to  Britain.  It  was  one  of  the  reasons 
later  advanced  by  Milton  toward  justifying  the  coun- 
ter-incursion of  the  Normans. 

7 

From  these  authentic  raids  of  the  Gaels  we  may 
approach  the  actual  history  that  precedes  the  coming 
of  Patrick.  But  first  we  must  admit  the  dimness  that 
surrounds  Ireland  and  Britain  even  as  late  as  the  be- 
ginning of  the  Christian  era. 

It  has  been  brilliantly  said,  "If  communications  had 
been  more  easy,  Queen  Maeve  might  have  entertained 
Caesar  Augustus  in  her  palace  at  Rathcrogan,  while 
the  fame  of  Finn  MacCool  might  have  added  to  the 
apprehensions  of  Aurelian."  (Grenville  A.  J.  Cole.) 
This  cross-section  in  chronology  suggests  how  the  illu- 
mination of  history,  so  vivid  in  Mesopotamia  and 
Egypt  and  Greece  and  later  Rome,  palpitates  and  pales 
as  one  follows  the  horizontal  line  to  the  North.  The 

21 


The  Story  of  the  Irish  Nation 

dimness  is  utterly  impenetrable  at  a  time  when  the 
world  is  already  radiant  in  the  South.  Where  were 
our  ancestors  when  the  Sumerians  were  writing  their 
tablets?  How  advanced  were  they  when  Socrates 
played  the  fine  light  of  reason  on  gods  and  men  in  the 
glowing  Athenian  shade?  It  is  only  by  the  aid  of 
happily  surviving  heroic  legends  and  justly  compen- 
sated tradition  that  scholars  venture  to  build  up  the 
Gaelic  past  before  the  time  of  Patrick.  And  yet  the 
secrets  of  the  race  have  been  in  good  keeping  in  the 
hands  of  Irish  poets.  Each  year,  as  scholarship  im- 
proves, the  magnificent  epics  of  Ireland  yield  up  one 
clue  after  another  to  prehistoric  Gaelic  civilization, 
and  the  age  of  historical  disclosure  is  not  over.  It 
was  only  in  1868  that  the  superb  "Ardagh"  chalice 
was  brought  to  light  by  a  man  digging  potatoes  at  a 
rath  in  County  Limerick;  it  dates  probably  from  the 
ninth  century.  It  was  only  in  1850  that  a  wayfarer 
picked  up  on  the  strand  at  Bettystown,  near  Drog- 
heda,  the  admirable  "Tara"  brooch.  Somewhere,  per- 
haps, in  a  buried  shrine,  there  may  still  lie  hidden  in 
Kildare  that  glorious  manuscript  which  the  emotional 
Gerald  de  Barri  declared  to  have  been  decorated  by 
angels!  Time,  at  any  rate,  favors  our  enlightenment 
on  this  flowering  Gaelic  period. 

22 


The  Gaelic  Period:  Pagan 
8 

The  failure  of  the  Romans  to  conquer  Ireland  is, 
in  a  sense,  a  landmark  of  Irish  history.  By  their  con- 
quest of  half-naked  and  primitive  Britain  the  Romans 
came  in  sight  of  Ireland,  but  they  never  attempted  to 
extend  their  empire  across  the  Irish  Sea.  They  lacked 
the  extra  legion  which  would  have  enabled  them  to 
tackle  the  Gaels.  The  Gaels,  on  their  side,  were  un- 
doubtedly aware  of  the  nearness  of  that  formidable 
imperial  power.  And  the  outside  contact  of  the  Gaels 
with  the  Roman  empire  has  left  a  few  records  in  writ- 
ing and  in  material  form.  Once  they  had  established 
a  footing  in  Alba  (Alp-a,  now  Scotland),  the  Gaels 
advanced  toward  the  Roman  wall  in  the  north ;  Ulster 
built  a  defensive  rampart  after  that  model  in  the  third 
century.  The  Gaels  harried  the  Roman  colony  before 
the  downfall  of  the  empire,  but  later,  when  the  "bar- 
barians" came  sweeping  from  the  east  in  the  fourth  cen- 
tury, a  division  called  the  First  Scots  (apparently  in- 
cluding Gaels  and  pre-Gaels)  fought  with  the  Romans 
"to  defend  the  line  of  the  Rhine.'*  New  colonies  of 
Celts  about  the  same  time  settled  in  that  accessible 
region  of  Leinster  around  Dublin  which  Belgae  and 
Norsemen  and  Normans  and  Saxons  have  always  made 

their  own. 

23 


The  Story  of  the  Irish  Nation 

Such  colonists  were  not,  in  the  nature  of  things, 
objectionable.  If  the  new-comers  entered  into  the 
right  alliances  and  lent  military  aid  and  paid  tribute, 
they  were  as  welcome  in  Irish  politics  as  the  "Polish 
vote"  or  the  "Italian  vote"  or  the  "Irish  vote"  in  twen- 
tieth-century American  politics.  Immigration  and 
emigration  were  more  frequent  than  usually  recognized 
in  the  early  centuries  of  this  era,  and  the  Norse-Irish, 
especially,  formed  what  might  be  termed  dissolving 
combinations. 

9 

In  the  Gaelic  land  at  home  early  history  actively 
revolves  around  one  central  political  theme — the  strife 
of  Ireland  in  changing  from  a  state  of  five  main  divi- 
sions to  a  state  of  seven  divisions  and  sub-kingships. 
Professor  MacNeill  says  that  the  oldest  certain  fact  in 
the  political  history  of  Ireland  is  the  "pentarchy." 
Till  1833  the  rock  stood  near  Mullingar  from  which 
the  five  divisions  of  the  country  were  traced,  and  the 
sept  names  that  were  identified  with  each  of  these  divi- 
sions, either  as  kings  or  under-kings,  are  on  record  in 
the  genealogies.  Dr.  Douglas  Hyde,  in  his  fascinating 
"Literary  History  of  Ireland,"  gives  us  the  names  of 
these  septs  that  were  best  known.  In  Leinster  there 
were  the  O'Tooles,  the  O'Byrnes,  MacMurroughs  or 


The  Gaelic  Period:  Pagan 

Murphys,  O'Conor  Falys,  O'Gormans,  and  others,  trac- 
ing back  to  A.  D.  123.  In  Munster  were  the  Mac- 
Carthys,  CKSullivans,  O'Keefes,  O'Callaghans,  the 
MacNamaras  and  Clancys,  the  O'Carrolls,  O'Meaghers, 
O'Haras,  O'Garas,  Caseys,  and  southern  O'Conors. 
Ulster  had  the  O'Neills  and  the  O'Donnells.  From 
Brian  came  the  O'Conors,  kings  of  Connacht,  Mac- 
Dermots,  O'Rorkes,  O'Reillys,  O'Flaherties,  MacDon- 
aghs,  O'Shaughnesys.  And  these  are  by  no  means  the 
last  of  the  leading  genealogies. 

The  boundaries  of  Ireland  even  now  are  under  dis- 
cussion; in  the  past,  change  was  the  rule  rather  than 
rigidity.  From  the  time  of  Toole  (Tuathal),  who 
exacted  the  huge  Borumha  or  Boru  tribute  from  Lein- 
ster,  to  the  time  of  Cormac  mac  Art  there  was  probably 
a  constant  shifting  of  power.  A  new  era  came  with 
Cormac  mac  Art  (227-266).  (Mac  means  son  of,  O' 
means  grandson  of.)  Working  his  way  forward  from 
his  own  home  in  Connacht  across  the  central  plain, 
Cormac  established  his  kingly  power  over  Meath.  By 
seating  his  dynasty  at  Tara  and  making  the  king  of 
Connacht  the  automatic  successor  to  Tara,  Cormac 
gave  a  trend  to  history  which,  in  the  century  succeed- 
ing, was  developed  by  the  uniting  of  Connacht  and 
Meath  against  Ulster  and  the  break-up  of  that  historic 

25 


The  Story  of  the  Irish  Nation 

division.  The  domination  of  Munster,  at  the  same 
time,  was  achieved  by  the  powerful  kings  enthroned  on 
the  Rock  of  Cashel.  Internal  security  seems  now  to 
have  obtained  for  a  considerable  period.  The  high- 
kings  who  came  later,  Niall  of  the  Nine  Hostages  and 
Nath-i  (also  called  Dathi),  attest  their  dominance  at 
home  by  their  militant  activity  abroad.  Niall  was 
slain  on  board  ship  in  the  English  Channel  (404)  by  a 
Leinster  prince,  Nath-i  killed  in  Gaul  (429).  Niall *s 
many  sons  inherited  or  conquered  small  principalities 
throughout  half  Ireland.  Vassal  communities  and 
communities  that  paid  tribute  were  multiplied  under 
this  division  of  Niall's  territory,  which  has  given  place- 
names  still  in  use  to  countless  districts  in  Ireland. 
Northeast  Ulster,  however,  remained  discordant  and 
split  into  four  sections.  The  men  of  South  Leinster, 
at  the  same  time,  stood  apart.  Their  mission  was  to 
recover  by  force  the  power  which  had  belonged  to  them 
when  a  Leinster  king  reigned  at  Tara. 

These  dynastic  struggles,  apparently  so  meaning- 
less, were  the  main  political  activity  of  the  warring 
Gaels.  But  the  conflicts  of  power  that  they  indicate 
did  not  cease  for  many  centuries.  War  rather  than 
peace  was  the  chief  fact  of  existence.  Love  was  the 

26 


The  Gaelic  Period:  Pagan 

incentive  arid  the  reward  of  heroes,  not  of  the  tamer 
breed  of  men. 

10 

The  barbarous  Gaelic  king  is  not  a  misty  figure  in 
the  Gaelic  past.  An  official  word-portrait  of  Connac 
at  royal  Tara  fortunately  remains  for  our  edification. 
It  is  to  be  found  in  the  "Book  of  Ballymote":  "Beau- 
tiful was  the  appearance  of  Cormac  in  that  assembly; 
flowing  and  slightly  curling  was  his  golden  hair.  A 
red  buckler  with  stars  and  animals  of  gold  and  fasten- 
ings of  silver  upon  him.  A  crimson  cloak  in  wide 
descending  folds  around  him,  fastened  at  his  neck  with 
precious  stones.  A  torque  of  gold  around  his  neck. 
A  white  shirt  with  a  full  collar,  and  intertwined  with 
red  gold  thread  upon  him.  A  girdle  of  gold,  inlaid 
with  precious  stones,  was  around  him.  Two  wonderful 
shoes  of  gold,  with  golden  loops,  upon  his  feet.  Two 
spears  with  golden  sockets  in  his  hands,  with  many 
rivets  of  red  bronze.  And  he  was  himself,  besides,  sym- 
metrical and  beautiful  of  form,  without  blemish  or  re- 
proach." 

It  is  not  hard  to  credit  the  account  of  a  Firbolg 
revolution  when  one  reads  of  Cormac's  magnificence. 

27 


The  Story  of  the  Irish  Nation 

He  was  attended  by  a  prince  of  the  blood,  a  Druid,  a 
leech,  a  judge,  a  bard,  a  musician,  a  story-teller,  and 
three  stewards.  The  great  Feis,  which  lasted  a  week, 
consisted  of  a  royal  reception,  a  parliament,  a  national 
registry  of  annals  and  genealogies,  a  great  festival,  and 
a  market.  Merchants  came  to  barter  from  as  far  as 
the  Eastern  Empire.  There  was  also  a  great  banquet 
in  a  hall  which  accommodated  a  thousand  warriors 
seated  beneath  their  shields.  The  Fiana,  or  militia, 
were  no  doubt  strongly  represented,  as  well  as  the  terri- 
torial kings  and  lords.  The  hall,  entered  by  fourteen 
doors,  was  three  hundred  feet  long,  ninety  feet  broad, 
and  forty-five  high.  It  was,  of  course,  built  of  wood 
and  has  long  since  disappeared. 

The  magnificence  of  Cormac  mac  Art's  gold  orna- 
ments is,  however,  far  from  incredible.  Antique  gold 
ornaments  weighing  five  hundred  and  seventy  ounces 
are  now  in  the  Irish  Academy  in  Dublin,  as  against 
thirty-six  ounces  of  British  findings  in  the  British 
Museum.  As  for  "Tara's  halls,"  the  written  record 
must  also  be  taken  as  credible.  The  government  ord- 
nance survey  has  confirmed  the  actual  ground  measure- 
ments recorded  in  the  "Book  of  Ballymote." 

Cormac  built  the  first  water-mill  in  Ireland,  which 
released  many  women  from  working  the  primitive  quern. 

28 


The  Gaelic  Period:  Pagan 

Had  this  pagan  king  the  use  of  letters?  Could  he 
write?  Tradition  declares  he  could,  and  we  find  in 
the  "Book  of  Ballymote"  his  "Instructions  to  a  Prince," 
which  counsel  "self-government  without  anger,  affabil- 
ity without  haughtiness,  diligent  attention  to  history, 
strict  observance  of  covenants  and  agreements,  strict- 
ness mitigated  by  mercy  in  the  execution  of  laws,"  and 
so  on.  A  king  should  be  elected,  he  said,  "from  the 
goodness  of  his  shape  and  family,  from  his  experience 
and  wisdom,  from  his  prudence  and  magnanimity,  from 
his  eloquence  and  bravery  in  battle,  and  from  the  num- 
ber of  his  friends." 

This,  then,  is  the  Ireland  of  the  epic;  of  gods  and 
fighting  men.  And  here,  in  A.  D.  432,  comes  Patrick 
with  his  strange  message  of  the  Savior,  of  sin  and 
repentance,  of  hell  and  of  eternal  salvation. 


CHAPTER  II 

THE    GAELIC    PERIOD:    CHEISTIAN 
1 

ST.  PATRICK  shines  out  of  the  pages  of  Irish  his- 
tory. Looking  at  his  figure  as  at  a  bright  flame, 
a  rim  of  obscurity  surrounds  him.  But  this  obscurity 
is  unfortunate ;  not  to  see  him  surrounded  by  the  pagan 
Gaels  is  to  miss  the  full  value  of  his  dramatic  success. 

Patrick  is  a  tremendous  figure  in  the  history  of  the 
North.  He  made  a  bridge  between  two  cultures — the 
Celtic  culture  of  Cuchulain  and  Finn  and  Ossian,  of 
Deirdre  and  Naisi,  and  the  Christian  culture  of  Naza- 
reth and  its  humble  faith  in  the  eternal.  Patrick  found 
Ireland  naively  pagan.  Without  arousing  passion  or 
confusing  the  will  of  those  to  whom  he  came,  he  and 
the  great  mission  that  came  with  him  gave  the  Gael  a 
new  vision  of  life,  a  new  habit,  a  new  orientation. 

We  are  familiar  with  the  efforts  of  Christian  mis- 
sionaries among  so-called  infidels  and  heathens  in  mod- 
ern times.  We  know  how  the  uncomfortable  Poly- 

30 


The  Gaelic  Period:  Christian 

nesians  have  yielded  to  being  photographed  in  the  stiff 
calico  night-dresses  of  Christianity.  The  efforts  of 
heroic  missionaries  in  China,  in  Japan,  among  the  In- 
dians, among  the  Africans,  have  been  witnessed  by  a 
world  that  estimates  the  cost  of  conversion  at  so  much 
per  head.  But  in  none  of  these  cases,  either  among 
the  lowly  cultured  or  the  highly  cultured,  has  the  whole 
stream  of  a  people's  life  been  swiftly  and  smoothly  con- 
verted into  a  new  channel.  The  victory  of  the  Cross 
in  Ireland,  against  a  paganism  that  has  often  been  de- 
scribed as  barbaric,  has  elements  in  it  which  demand 
that  the  preceding  epoch  be  taken  into  account. 

2 

The  Druid  is  a  dim  figure  in  the  ancient  Celtic  world. 
Wherever  the  Celt  lived — in  France,  Belgium,  parts  of 
Britain,  Germany,  Italy,  Switzerland,  and  Spain — the 
legend  of  the  Druid  may  be  picked  up  in  a  trail  of 
incantations,  ceremonials,  and  sooth-saying  which 
makes  him  seem  like  a  particularly  forbidding  and 
superstitious  medicine-man.  But  out  of  the  vague  in- 
stitution of  the  Druid  in  Gaelic  Ireland  one  gathers 
that  something  more  than  a  medicine-man  was  devel- 
oped. The  archaic  Druid  in  Ireland  does  not  seem 
to  be  steeped  in  the  bloody  ritual  of  human  sacrifice. 

31 


The  Story  of  the  Irish  Nation 

He  appears  to  be  akin  to  the  Magi  from  the  East.  He 
looked  toward  the  East  in  his  worship.  In  groves  and 
by  streams  he  invoked  the  spirit  of  the  earth  and  the 
air:  there  are  still  mounds  and  secret  places  in  Ireland 
where  one  feels  a  presence,  as  if  out  of  the  regiment  of 
the  past  there  came  a  breath  of  the  impalpable.  Mys- 
tery still  clings  in  the  hollows  and  folds  of  the  Irish 
hills,  and  in  many  a  quiet  wood  one  feels  the  tenseness 
of  the  unseen,  the  wind  of  an  enchantment. 

It  was  in  these  moods  of  the  earth,  still  so  close  to 
us  in  Ireland,  that  the  Druid  arose  in  the  half-light  of 
the  past,  feeling  his  way  in  a  universe  where  he  bowed 
before  the  sun  and  yet  unconsciously  lifted  himself  in 
the  majesty  of  the  trees.  We  discover  that  as  society 
became  more  secure  and  spacious  the  Druid  did  not  re- 
main a  mere  spokesman  of  the  hidden.  In  Gaul,  Caesar 
found  that  the  Druids  had  become  the  custodians  of 
law  and  the  referees  of  custom.  Out  of  these  offices, 
one  surmises,  branch  the  various  social  functions  of  the 
brehon  or  judge,  the  file  or  bard,  the  ollamh  or  sage. 

The  brehon  law  did  not  develop  as  did  Roman  law, 
adapting  itself  with  an  empire  and  changing  (as  well 
as  law  can  change)  with  the  social  organism.  Rewrit- 
ten and  revised  though  it  was,  the  brehon  law  clearly 
remained  a  body  of  precepts  not  different  in  kind  from 

32 


The  Gaelic  Period:  Christian 

other  Aryan  precepts,  but  stabilized  with  respect  to  a 
conservative  form  of  existence. 

We  know  from  Cormac  mac  Art's  instructions  what 
the  ideals  of  the  prince  were  in  the  Gaelic  period :  from 
the  regulations  in  the  brehon  law  we  know  the  system 
of  fines  for  acts  of  violence,  the  laws  permitting  cattle- 
seizure,  the  ancient  custom  of  fasting  or  hunger-strik- 
ing on  a  debtor.  With  the  allied  functions  of  law- 
giving,  arbitration,  deciding  and  chronicling  genealo- 
gies, and  recording  traditions,  the  bards  became 
intimately  associated ;  and  the  Druid,  the  judge,  the 
poet,  the  chronicler,  are  generally  mentioned  in  one 
breath.  So  important  did  these  offices  become  that  the 
bards,  moving  about  the  country  like  a  swarm  of  honey- 
bees and  settling  on  whatever  ruling  family  they  elected 
to  patronize,  had  almost  as  great  privileges  as  their 
hosts.  They  were  subdivided  in  rank  among  them- 
selves, but  the  chief  poet  ranked  next  to  the  king,  was 
attended  by  a  considerable  staff  of  retainers,  and  lived 
handsomely  at  the  public  expense.  To  rise  to  this 
eminence  he  had  to  serve  a  long  apprenticeship.  His 
feats  of  memory  were  remarkable,  but,  having  reached 
a  height  of  privilege,  he  worked  to  maintain  that  scheme 
of  privilege  for  the  sake  of  himself  and  his  order. 

The  bards,  as  is  often  said,  may  have  pressed  their 

33 


The  Story  of  the  Irish  Nation 

advantage  too  hard  in  pre-Christian  times.  The  fact 
remains  that  the  bardic  institution  preserved  and  en- 
hanced a  genuine  culture.  This,  because  of  its  inherent 
refinement  and  civility  and  rich  imaginativeness,  is  the 
basis  on  which  alone  Patrick  and  his  company  could 
have  built. 

"Irish  epic  story,"  as  de  Jubainville  says,  "barbarous 
though  it  is,  is,  like  Irish  law,  a  monument  of  a  civiliza- 
tion far  superior  to  that  of  the  most  ancient  Germans ; 
if  the  Roman  idea  of  the  state  was  wanting  to  that  civil- 
ization, and  if  that  defect  in  it  was  a  radical  flaw,  still 
there  is  an  intellectual  culture  to  be  found  there,  far 
more  developed  than  among  the  primitive  Germans." 
This  culture  is  not  a  matter  of  speculation.  The  epics 
in  fine  meter  and  in  prose  are  at  last  finding  their  way 
into  the  English-speaking  world  where  for  generations 
it  has  been  almost  a  point  of  etiquette  to  be  ignorant 
of  them. 

3 

Patrick  was  not  the  first  Christian  to  come  to  Ire- 
land. He  did  not  banish  the  snakes.  The  snakes 
were  excluded  geologically.  The  fact  that  there  were 
no  snakes  was  known  in  Firbolg  times  when  Irish  soil 
was  exported  to  kill  off  snakes  in  other  lands.  The 
absence  of  snakes  was  noted  definitely  by  Solinus  in 


The  Gaelic  Period:  Christian 

the  third  century.  As  for  the  Christianizing  of  Ire- 
land, it  was  a  mission  that  beckoned  many  British 
Christians  of  the  fourth  and  fifth  centuries:  several 
are  recorded  to  have  established  themselves  in  Ireland. 
But  if  popular  tradition  has  embroidered  the  story  of 
Patrick,  it  has  done  less  than  justice  to  his  positive  and 
massive  personality.  Luckily  for  us,  the  man  himself 
is  to  be  found  in  a  poignant  document  copied  from  his 
own  text  in  a  manuscript  itself  over  1100  years  old. 
This  is  the  "Confession,"  which  is  as  authentic  as  the 
"Confession"  of  St.  Augustine. 

What  Patrick  gives  us  is  nothing  like  that  search 
in  the  labyrinth  of  man's  soul  which  the  exiled  Augus- 
tine penned  in  Hippo.  Patrick  was  not  a  psychologist 
but  a  man  of  action.  His  story,  however,  has  pro- 
found feeling  and  dignity.  It  spreads  before  us  a  true 
and  telling  account  of  a  great  enterprise. 

Patrick  was  a  Briton.  He  was  born  on  one  of  the 
rivers  in  the  north  of  Britain,  probably  at  Dumbarton 
on  the  Clyde.  The  name  he  gives  in  his  "Confession" 
seems  simply  to  mean  Riverhead  Tavern.  He  was 
known  as  Succat  till  he  took  the  name  Patricius.  His 
father  was  a  considerable  official  of  the  waning  Roman 
colony.  In  the  time  that  Patrick  was  born,  at  the 
beginning  of  the  fifth  century,  the  Gaels  were  out  in 

35 


The  Story  of  the  Irish  Nation 

strong  fleets  to  raid  the  coast  of  Britain.  At  the  time 
he  was  sixteen  years  old  his  father's  estate  was  visited 
by  the  troops  of  the  high-king  Niall,  and  he  and  his 
sister  and  "thousands  of  others"  were  taken  as  slaves. 
"When  a  mere  youth,  nay  a  beardless  boy,"  he  says 
pathetically,  "I  was  taken  captive,  before  I  knew  what 
to  seek  and  what  to  avoid;  and  therefore  I  am  even 
to-day  ashamed  and  greatly  dread  to  show  my  igno- 
rance, because  not  being  learned  I  cannot  express  my- 
self in  a  few  words." 

This  boy  was  separated  from  his  sister.  For  six 
years,  in  Antrim  or  Down,  homesick  and  naked  and 
lonely,  he  worked  in  the  harsh  strangers'  land.  "Now 
after  I  came  to  Hiberione,  I  herded  flocks  daily,  and  I 
prayed  often  during  the  day.  Love  of  God  and  fear 
of  Him  and  faith  grew  in  me  and  moved  my  soul  so 
that  I  must  have  prayed  a  hundred  times  a  day,  and  as 
many  times  in  the  night,  though  I  stayed  in  the  woods 
and  on  the  mountains.  I  was  moved  to  pray  before 
dawn,  and  in  snow  or  frost  or  rain;  yet  I  took  no 
harm." 

When  he  was  twenty-two  he  had  a  vision:  "the  ship 
is  ready  for  you."  He  believes  that  at  last  he  is  to  go 
home  to  his  people,  among  the  Britons.  When  he 
reaches  the  ship  and  offers  to  work  his  passage  the  ship- 

36 


The  Gaelic  Period:  Christian 

captain  refuses  him,  but  as  he  turns  back  to  his  lodg- 
ing, praying  in  his  despair,  one  of  the  crew  hails  him, 
"Come  back,  they  want  you!"  The  ship,  the  cargo, 
the  crew,  the  voyage,  remain  in  his  memory  all  his  life. 
Dogs  were  part  of  the  cargo — great  Irish  wolf-hounds. 
When  they  reach  port  they  start  overland,  and  for 
twenty-eight  days  they  travel  through  a  land  famished 
after  the  wars  against  the  Huns.  At  last  they  come 
to  Italy,  but  in  the  end  Patrick  starts  north  and 
reaches  his  folk  in  Britain. 

And  there,  though  he  was  "welcomed  like  a  son," 
he  hears  the  "voices  of  the  Irish."  "Come  and  dwell 
with  us !"  Would  he  heed  these  voices  ?  He  was  a 
patrician.  He  had  friends  and  family  who  begged 
him  not  to  heed.  But  he  who  had  not  believed  in  the 
living  God  in  his  prosperity  had  been  brought  to  Him 
in  daily  hunger  and  nakedness.  With  sublime  spirit, 
Patrick  says,  "These  things  brought  good,  for  through 
them  I  was  corrected  by  the  Lord,  so  that  I  work  and 
toil  now  for  the  well-being  of  others,  I  who  formerly 
took  no  care,  even  for  myself."  And  so,  "for  His 
sake"  he  "willingly  left  home  and  people  though  they 
offered  me  many  gifts  with  tears  and  sorrow." 

In  this  fifth  century  of  world  war  and  desolation 
and  upheaval,  the  pure  and  exalted  faith  that  Patrick 

37 


The  Story  of  the  Irish  Nation 

had  conceived  comes  as  a  new  light  on  life.  He  is  very 
human.  He  says :  "Not  my  grace  it  was,  but  God 
who  conquered  in  me  and  resisted  them  all,  so  that  I 
came  to  the  Irish  people  to  preach  the  Gospel — and  to 
bear  insults  from  unbelievers,  to  hear  reproaches  for 
having  gone  abroad,  and  to  suffer  many  persecutions 
even  unto  chains.  My  rank  of  freeman  too  I  had  to 
give  up  for  the  sake  of  others." 

Like  John  Bunyan,  Patrick  burns  with  faith,  but  his 
faith  is  the  faith  of  a  great  and  influential  missionary. 
"Willingly  would  I  see  my  own  people  and  my  native 
land  again,  or  even  go  so  far  as  Gaul  to  visit  my 
brothers,  and  see  the  faces  of  my  Master's  holy  men. 
But  I  am  bound  in  the  spirit  and  would  be  unfaithful 
if  I  went.  I  fear  to  lose  the  labor  which  I  began. 
Yet  not  I  would  lose  it,"  he  adds  quickly,  "but  Christ, 
the  Lord,  who  bid  me  come  hither,  to  spend  my  whole 
life  in  serving,  if  the  Lord  should  so  will." 

Before  he  came,  he  says,  they  all  opposed  his  mis- 
sion to  Ireland.  They  talked  behind  his  back,  saying: 
*  'He  wishes  to  risk  his  life  among  enemies  who  know 
nothing  of  the  Lord,'  not  speaking  maliciously,  but 
opposing  me  because  I  was  so  ignorant.  Nor  did  I 
myself  at  once  perceive  the  grace  that  was  in  me.  .  .  ." 
There  speaks  the  leader.  But  Patrick  was  as  hum- 

38 


The  Gaelic  Period:  Christian 

ble  as  he  was  strong.  He  lived  his  life  "for  the  hope 
of  the  life  eternal,"  and  he  governed  himself  strictly 
in  the  ways  of  poverty  and  plain  living.  He  took  no 
jewels  and  lavished  his  own  gifts  on  those  who  conveyed 
him  from  one  domain  to  another.  "You  know,  and 
God  knows,"  he  declares,  "how  from  my  youth  I  have 
lived  among  you  with  belief  in  the  truth  and  sincerity 
of  heart.  Even  with  the  tribesmen  among  whom  I 
dwell  I  have  kept  faith  and  will  keep  it.  God  knows 
I  have  deceived  no  man  in  anything,  nor  ever  shall,  for 
God's  sake  and  the  sake  of  His  church,  lest  persecution 
should  be  stirred  up  against  them  and  us  all,  and  the 
name  of  the  Lord  be  blasphemed  through  me." 

And  then  he  says,  as  though  to  himself :  "I  look  for- 
ward daily  to  a  violent  death,  or  to  be  taken  prisoner 
and  sold  into  slavery  or  some  like  end.  But  I  fear 
none  of  these  .  .  .  but  let  me  not  lose  His  people  whom 
He  has  purchased  here  at  the  very  end  of  the  earth." 

It  is  usually  intimated  that  Patrick  came  to  Ireland 
alone  in  432,  probably  carrying  a  crozier.  This  is 
fantastic.  We  learn  from  the  "Book  of  Armagh,"  as 
Dr.  Douglas  Hyde  points  out,  that  he  arrived  with 
members  of  his  own  family,  with  bishops,  priests,  dea- 
cons, and  others.  He  traveled  with  a  coadjutor,  a 
psalm-singer,  an  assistant  priest,  a  local  brehon,  a 

39 


The  Story  of  the  Irish  Nation 

"personal  champion"  or  strong-arm  man,  an  attendant, 
a  bell-ringer,  a  cook,  a  brewer,  a  chaplain,  two  waiters, 
and  a  commissariat.  Three  women,  one  of  them  his 
sister,  came  to  make  vestments  and  altar  linen.  Be- 
sides, there  were  three  smiths  and  three  artisans.  Like 
the  evangelists  of  the  twentieth  century,  Patrick  built 
his  own  tabernacle  wherever  he  went,  and  as  he  made 
converts  of  the  right  sort  he  hastily  prepared  them 
and  ordained  them  priests  and  equipped  them. 

The  Irish  were  ripe  for  him ;  from  A.  D.  432  onward 
he  met  with  one  of  those  responses  which  remind  us  how 
capricious  and  at  the  same  time  how  dramatic  is  the 
course  of  history.  Patrick  came  to  Ireland  when  no 
vested  interest  really  opposed  him.  He  was  able  to 
level  the  idol  Cromm  Cruach,  to  "burn  the  books  of  the 
Druids  at  Tara,"  and  at  Armagh,  less  identified  with 
paganism,  to  settle  down  after  twenty  years  to  prepare 
young  men  for  his  mission.  This  was  the  school  to 
which,  two  hundred  years  later,  the  Anglo-Saxons  came 
in  such  numbers  that  one-third  of  the  city  was  called 
"the  Anglo-Saxon  third." 

4 

The  waves  from  Patrick's  mission  rolled  out  in  circle 
after  circle  for  hundreds  of  years.  The  early  Chris- 

40 


The  Gaelic  Period:  Christian 

tians  in  civilized  Rome,  be  it  remembered,  were  not 
long  in  encountering  the  Roman  state.  In  the  name 
of  the  state  they  were  led  to  the  arena.  There  was  no 
such  state  in  Ireland  and  no  such  arena.  There  were 
no  Christian  martyrs  in  Gaelic  Ireland.  The  religion 
of  Christ  was  not  introduced  by  the  Irish  chiefs  as  it 
was  by  the  excellent  Olaf  Trygvesson,  with  a  cross  in 
one  hand  and  a  red-hot  poker  in  the  other.  But  if 
Christianity  flowed  into  Ireland  with  astonishing  ease 
it  must  be  noted  that  Patrick  in  no  sense  overturned 
or  indeed  challenged  the  political  system.  By  preach- 
ing salvation  he  gave  Ireland  a  religion  that  overlapped 
and  superseded  paganism  and  drew  the  whole  Gaelic 
people  to  a  new  and  wonderful  preoccupation.  But 
the  self-sufficient,  belligerent  political  units  remained. 
Within  a  few  centuries  the  king-bishop  and  the  fighting 
monk  were  just  as  ready  for  warfare  as  their  lay 
brothers.  What  was  immediately  changed  was  the  cul- 
tural and,  in  time,  the  ecclesiastical  focal  centers  of 
Ireland. 

At  first,  apparently,  the  Irish  Church  was  quite  inde- 
pendent of  Rome,  since  Britain,  as  well  as  Ireland,  was 
entirely  cut  off  from  Rome  for  a  hundred  and  fifty 
years.  Armagh  and  lona  showed  decided  reluctance 
to  combine  even  with  the  Saxon  converts. 

41 


The  Story  of  the  Irish  Nation 

At  the  Synod  of  Whitby,  A.  D.  664,  the  Irish  Church 
stubbornly  resisted  conformity  on  such  points  as  the 
date  of  Easter,  the  mode  of  the  tonsure,  unconditional 
celibacy,  etc.  Because  Patrick  had  given  Ireland  the 
Jewish  way  of  reckoning  time,  the  Irish  Church  was  in 
danger  of  being  deemed  Jewish  until  it  yielded  on  its 
calendar  in  the  beginning  of  the  eighth  century.  This 
was  not  the  first  conflict  with  Rome. 

But  it  is  not  in  ecclesiastical  history  that  one  finds 
the  blossoming  of  the  Gaelic  period.  It  is  in  the  found- 
ing of  schools  and  colleges,  the  building  of  stone 
churches,  the  illumination  of  beautiful  missals,  and  the 
exquisite  enamel  and  metal  handicraft  of  the  monas- 
teries, the  teaching  of  Greek  and  Latin,  of  history  and 
geography  and  mathematics  and  philosophy  and  natu- 
ral science,  the  enlistment  of  the  bards,  and  the  con- 
version of  kings. 


Patrick's  seminary  at  Armagh  had  in  it  the  seed  of 
a  great  scholastic  activity.  Three  hundred  and  fifty 
bishops,  "mostly  Franks,  Romans  and  Britons,  but 
with  some  Irish,"  compose  Patrick's  first  order  in  Irish 
ecclesiastical  reckoning.  The  second  order,  to  which 
St.  Columcille  belonged,  are  the  men  who  founded  those 

42 


The  Gaelic  Period:  Christian 

schools  of  which  the  Irish  manuscripts  give  so  radiant 
an  account. 

The  school  of  St.  Enda  drew  to  the  Isle  of  Aran  Mor 
such  saints  as  Finnian  of  Moville,  Ciaran  of  Clon- 
macnois,  Jarlath  of  Tuam,  Carthach  of  Lismore, 
Keevin  of  Glendalough.  Clonard,  near  the  Boyne,  had 
three  thousand  students  around  it.  Founded  in  520, 
it  flourished  until  the  vikings  raided  it  scores  of  times 
in  the  bloody  ninth  century.  Clonfert  on  the  Shannon, 
founded  by  Brendan  in  556,  had  at  its  head  the  man 
who  wrote  "Navigatio  Brendani."  It  lasted  until  rav- 
aged in  the  twelfth  century.  Clonmacnois,  founded  in 
544,  became  the  proudest  university  of  this  period.  To- 
day, as  Dr.  Douglas  Hyde  records,  "its  church-yard 
possesses  a  greater  variety  of  sculptured  and  deco- 
rated stones  than  perhaps  all  the  rest  of  Ireland  put 
together."  The  kings  of  Connacht,  the  O'Conors,  had 
their  own  church  there.  So  had  the  Ui  Neill  of  the 
South.  The  MacCarthys  of  Munster,  the  MacDermots 
of  Moyburg,  the  O'Kellys  of  Hy  Maine,  had  their  own 
mortuary  chapels.  Alcuin,  "the  most  learned  man  at 
the  French  court,"  was  educated  there,  as  a  grateful 
letter  of  his  testifies.  On  ten  occasions  the  Northmen 
penetrated  to  Clonmacnois  and  commenced  the  work 
of  destruction  which  the  English  of  Athlone  completed. 

43 


The  Story  of  the  Irish  Nation 

At  Bangor,  on  Belfast  Lough,  a  school  was  founded  in 
550,  described  by  St.  Bernard  as  "a  noble  institution, 
which  was  inhabited  by  many  thousands  of  monks." 
From  Bangor  came  Columbanus,  the  evangelist  of  Bur- 
gundy and  Lombardy;  St.  Gall,  who  preached  in 
Switzerland ;  and  Dungal,  the  astronomer,  who  founded 
the  University  of  Pavia.  The  fate  of  Bangor  was  more 
dreadful  than  that  of  the  other  colleges,  nine  hundred 
monks  being  slain  by  the  raiding  Norse. 

Dr.  Hyde  enumerates  Lismore,  attended  by  Gauls, 
Teutons,  Swiss,  and  Italians  in  700;  Moville,  whose 
founder  became  Frigidius  of  Lucca  in  Switzerland; 
Clonenagh  near  Maryborough;  and  the  famous  and 
beautiful  Glendalough.  Of  these  Glendalough  was 
sacked  by  the  Danes.  Strongbow's  son  began  in  1174 
the  harrying  of  Lismore,  which,  after  a  Norman  was 
killed  near-by,  ended  in  its  complete  obliteration  as  a 
"reprisal"  in  1207.  Cork,  Ross,  Innisfallen,  Iniscaltra, 
are  other  schools  on  which  Douglas  Hyde  dilates  in  his 
admirable  "Literary  History  of  Ireland." 

6 

The  degree  of  learning  attained  in  these  Irish  schools 
is  the  subject  of  present  discussion.  The  free  creative 
mind,  certainly,  was  not  the  object  of  medieval  system. 

44 


The  Gaelic  Period:  Christian 


These  schools  had  closed  minds.  But  if  no  such  fresh 
fountain  gushed  forth  as  distinguished  the  Age  of 
Pericles,  the  actual  service  to  scholarship  must  not  be 


Great  Cross 

of 
Monasterboice 


minimized.  Cummian's  famous  letter,  says  Professor 
Stokes,  proves  "that  in  the  first  half  of  the  seventh 
century  there  was  a  wide  range  of  Greek  learning,  not 
ecclesiastical  merely,  but  chronological,  astronomical, 
and  philosophical,  away  at  Durrow  in  the  very  center 

45 


The  Story  of  the  Irish  Nation 

of  the  Bog  of  Allen."  "The  classic  tradition,"  says 
Darmesteter,  "to  all  appearances  dead  in  Europe,  burst 
out  into  full  flower  in  the  Isle  of  Saints,  and  the  Renais- 
sance began  in  Ireland  700  years  before  it  was  known 
in  Italy.  During  three  centuries  Ireland  was  the  asy- 
lum of  the  higher  learning  which  took  sanctuary  there 
from  the  uncultured  states  of  Europe.  At  one  time 
Armagh,  the  religious  capital  of  Christian  Ireland,  was 
the  metropolis  of  civilization.'*  "Ireland,"  Zimmer 
puts  it,  "can  indeed  lay  claim  to  a  great  past ;  she 
cannot  only  boast  of  having  been  the  birthplace  and 
abode  of  high  culture  in  the  fifth  and  sixth  centuries, 
at  a  time  when  the  Roman  Empire  was  being  under- 
mined by  the  alliances  and  inroads  of  German  tribes, 
which  threatened  to  sink  the  whole  Continent  into  bar- 
barism, but  also  of  having  made  strenuous  efforts  in 
the  seventh  and  up  to  the  tenth  century  to  spread  her 
learning  among  the  German  and  Romance  peoples,  thus 
forming  the  actual  foundation  of  our  present  Conti- 
nental civilization." 

These  are  big  words.  Professor  Eoin  MacNeill,  who 
does  not  deal  in  words  of  this  size,  believes  that  Arch- 
bishop Theodore,  who  taught  Greek  at  Canterbury 
from  664  till  690,  was  the  man  who  gave  Greek  its  cur- 
rency in  Irish  schools.  "During  the  sixth,  seventh, 

46 


The  Gaelic  Period:  Christian 


and  eighth  centuries,"  says  the  realistic  MacNeill,  "Ire- 
land, enjoying  freedom  from  external  danger  and  hold- 
ing peaceful  intercourse  with  the  other  nations,  made 




John  Scotus  Erigena 

8IO  —  88O 


no  inglorious  use  of  her  opportunity.  The  native  learn- 
ing and  the  Latin  learning  throve  side  by  side.  The 
ardent  spirit  of  the  people  sent  missionary  streams 
into  Britain  and  Gaul,  western  Germany  and  Italy, 
even  to  furthest  Iceland.  And  among  all  this  world- 

47 


The  Story  of  the  Irish  Nation 

intercourse  there  grew  up   the  most  intense  national 
consciousness." 

One  powerful  original  mind,  however,  must  not  be 
forgotten.  John  Scotus  Erigena  was  an  Irish  layman 
in  the  middle  of  the  ninth  century  whose  Greek  erudi- 
tion astounded  the  Vatican  librarian.  But  he  stood 
for  more  than  erudition.  His  thinking  was  indepen- 
dent enough  to  allow  him  to  produce  a  system  of  phi- 
losophy which  set  the  church  councils  in  motion  to 
condemn  and  demolish  him. 

7 

Of  the  Irish  missionaries  who  went  afield,  the  fiery 
Columcille  (also  called  Columba)  founded  his  great 
monastery  in  lona  in  563.  This  was  the  base  from 
which  Scotland  was  evangelized.  Columbanus,  from 
Leinster,  went  among  the  Franks  with  a  company  of 
missionaries  and  from  590  till  he  died  at  Bobbio  in  615 
he  labored  among  barbarians  with  power  and  intre- 
pidity. St.  Gall,  an  Irishman  who  was  with  Colum- 
banus, gave  his  name  to  the  famous  Swiss  monastery. 
Dagobert,  the  Merovingian  king,  who  was  educated  in 
Ireland,  retired  in  656  to  a  cloister  founded  by  an  Irish 
abbot  in  France.  Into  Bavaria  missionaries  spread 
from  Luxeuil,  Columbanus's  earlier  headquarters.  The 

48 


The  Gaelic  Period:  Christian 

Irish  pilgrims  continued  to  pour  into  the  continent  as 
evangelists  and  scholars  and  scribes,  a  process  which 
continued  until  Ireland  itself  came  within  the  savage 
sweep  of  the  vikings. 

The  English  have  contributed  virtually  nothing  to 
the  study  of  Gaelic  relics.  Continental  scholars,  luck- 
ily, have  not  been  so  insular.  Dr.  Douglas  Hyde 
remarks  "the  keenness  with  which  their  relics  have  been 
studied  by  European  scholars — French,  German,  and 
Italian.  The  most  important  are  the  glosses  found  in 
the  Irish  manuscripts  of  Milan,  published  by  Ascoli, 
Zeuss,  Stokes,  and  Nigra;  those  in  St.  Gall,  published 
by  Ascoli  and  Nigra ;  those  in  Wurtzburg,  published 
by  Zimmer  and  Zeuss ;  those  in  Carlsruhe,  published  by 
Zeuss ;  those  in  Turin,  published  by  Zimmer,  Nigra, 
and  Stokes  in  his  Goidelica ;  those  in  Vienna,  published 
by  Zimmer  in  his  Glossse  Hibernicffi  and  Stokes  in  his 
Goidelica;  those  in  Berne,  those  in  Leyden,  those  in 
Nancy,  and  the  glosses  on  the  Cambrai  Sermon,  pub- 
lished by  Zeuss."  This,  of  course,  is  not  an  exhaus- 
tive list. 

Enough  has  been  quoted,  possibly,  to  carry  the  mind 
beyond  the  circle  of  Ireland  to  that  nightmare  Europe 
of  which  so  little  is  known  and  to  which  the  Irishman 
seems  to  have  brought  sweetness  and  light.  But  one 

49 


The  Story  of  the  Irish  Nation 

must  return  to  Kells  and  Armagh  and  Durrow,  where 
a  love  of  beauty  led  the  early  monks  to  lavish  on  their 
illuminated  manuscripts  an  almost  indescribable  in- 
vention and  care.  Theirs  was  not  an  emancipated  art. 


The 

Ardagh  Chalice 


About    Ninth    Centur 


It  was  an  art  cloistered  within  the  limits  of  a  few 
square  inches,  intensive  far  beyond  the  point  of  naked 
vision.  It  shut  out  the  world  and  looked  with  shining 
concentration  at  the  infinite  minutiae  of  interlacing  pat- 
terns and  the  jewels  of  the  spectrum  shining  in  a  drop 
of  dew.  But  if  the  end  is  microscopic,  the  means  that 

50 


The  Gaelic  Period:  Christian 

are  employed  toward  it  are  ravishing.  The  "Book  of 
Kells,"  now  in  Trinity  College,  Dublin,  is  of  its  kind 
incomparable.  No  one  can  contemplate  it  without  joy- 
ous amazement. 

The  Ardagh  chalice  and  the  Tara  brooch  have  the 
same  quality  of  distinctive  design  and  exquisitely  re- 
fined handicraft.  With  such  esthetic  beginnings  as 
these  established  in  the  eighth  and  ninth  centuries  much 
might  have  followed.  .  .  . 

8 

But  before  touching  upon  the  Northman  or  the 
Norman  we  must  glance  at  the  political  and  economic 
course  of  Ireland  from  the  time  that  Patrick  arrived, 
and  with  him  the  era  of  more  direct  and  reliably  re- 
corded history.  The  advent  of  Patrick  had  one 
politico-moral  effect;  it  put  an  end  to  the  Irish  raids 
on  Britain.  Saxon  raids  on  Ireland  were  later  chroni- 
cled; Egfrid  was  killed  on  Irish  soil  in  684,  and  from 
that  date  for  nearly  thirty  years  there  were  Saxon 
incursions,  coinciding  with  Pictish  pressure  from  the 
north  and  the  strained  ecclesiastical  relations.  No 
matter  how  the  Irish  battled,  however,  it  was  no  longer 
on  the  barbaric  principle  of  Cormac  mac  Art  that  it 
was  the  duty  of  a  king  to  war  on  the  foreigner.  That 

51 


The  Story  of  the  Irish  Nation 

principle,  which  underlies  imperialism,  has  not  ap- 
peared in  Irish  polity  since  St.  Patrick.  It  was  for 
power  inside  Ireland  that  the  Irish  chiefs  contended, 
until  Brian  Boru  (spelled  Boromha  in  the  Irish  lan- 
guage) became  "emperor  of  the  Irish." 

The  making  of  the  Irish  state  was  a  task  of  supreme 
difficulty,  not  fully  achieved;  but  the  same  must  not 
be  said  about  the  making  of  the  Irish  nation.  Though 
there  were  a  hundred  territories  and  a  hundred  local 
groupings,  there  was  a  unification  of  land  tenure  and 
judicial  habit  and  a  community  of  religion.  To  the 
Firbolg  or  plebeian  population  the  church  gave  as  good 
standing  as  to  the  Gael.  This  gradually  merged  the 
two  peoples  into  one,  and  quickened  the  process  of 
nationality.  The  consciousness  of  Ireland,  a  country 
beloved,  is  to  be  found  as  early  as  Columcille,  563. 
Few  poems  breathe  such  passionate  love  of  land  as 
Columcille's.  He  looks  back  on  the  shore  as  he  sails 
in  his  middle  age  to  his  final  mission  in  Scotland : 

There  's  an  eye  of  gray 
Looks  back  to  Erinn  far  away: 
While  life  last,  't  will  see  no  more 
Man  or  maid  on  Erinn's  shore! 

This  is  only  one  of  the  countless  times  that  Irishmen 
of  every  age  in  Christendom  have  yearned  to  their  land 

52 


The  Gaelic  Period:  Christian 

as  to  a  person,  their  fiber  knitted  to  the  earth  of  Ireland 
so  that  to  leave  it  is  a  death. 

The  political  process  in  Ireland,  even  after  the  com- 
ing of  Patrick,  was  still  one  of  sept  warring  with  sept. 
The  Gaels  sought  rather  than  avoided  the  arbitrament 
of  war.  In  the  two  hundred  years  of  Connacht's  domi- 
nance in  the  limestone  plain,  the  men  of  Leinster,  safe 
in  their  own  fastnesses,  tried  continually  to  recover 
Tara.  A  new  unrest  came  from  within.  Connacht's 
power  was  dispersed  with  the  subdivisions  that  were 
made  to  provide  for  Niall's  many  sons.  Through  those 
subdivisions  there  were  more  Ui  Neill  outside  Con- 
nacht  than  in  Connacht.  These  Ui  Neill,  north  and 
south,  combined  to  displace  the  western  branch  from 
the  monarchy  of  Ireland.  They  smashed  Connacht  at 
the  battle  of  Ocha,  483.  This  gave  the  high-kingship 
to  the  Ui  Neill  for  centuries,  but  Munster  had  yet  to 
make  a  bid  for  supremacy.  The  kings  of  Cashel  grew 
strong  and  aggressive  until,  after  a  predatory  career 
of  extraordinary  ferocity,  Feidlimid  came  in  conflict 
with  the  reigning  Niall  over  the  domination  of  Leinster. 
In  908,  at  the  Battle  of  Belach  Mugna,  the  king-bishops 
of  Cashel  played  their  last  game  of  royal  chess.  Their 
defeat  and  subordination  left  the  Ui  Neill  in  power. 

53 


The  Story  of  the  Irish  Nation 

In  the  weakening  of  Cashel,  however,  the  rest  of  Mun- 
ster  was  brought  into  the  arena.  Under  Brian  Boru 
this  new  power  combined  with  Connacht  so  as  to  give 
him  the  headship  of  Ireland.  West  Munster,  in  the 
end,  did  not  hold  the  supremacy.  This  was  one  of  the 
elements  that  gave  opportunity  to  the  Anglo-Normans. 

9 

But  it  would  be  unhistorical  to  think  of  these  con- 
flicts as  peculiar  to  the  Irish  nation.  One  has  only  to 
consider  the  condition  of  Britain  in  the  same  period 
to  realize  the  essential  disorder  of  the  ninth,  tenth,  and 
eleventh  centuries.  The  eruption  of  the  vikings  at  the 
same  time  adds  one  more  wild  distraction  to  the  preda- 
tory life  of  northern  Europe. 

The  vikings  came  sweeping  the  ocean  toward  the  end 
of  the  eighth  century.  The  most  formidable  pagan 
fighters  of  the  North,  they  mastered  the  seas  and  the 
islands  of  the  seas  in  their  swift,  light,  stalwart  sea- 
craft.  In  795  they  first  came  to  Ireland.  In  the  be- 
ginning they  had  no  political  purpose:  they  were  con- 
tent to  fall  on  the  rich  and  pacific  monasteries  near 
the  coast,  kill  the  monks,  whom  they  surprised,  and 
help  themselves  to  vestments,  gold  ornaments,  chalices, 

54 


The  Gaelic  Period:  Christian 

fine  hangings,  stores,  and  wines.  These  expeditions 
brought  terror  to  Christian  Ireland:  they  stimulated 
the  Northmen  to  repeat  them.  An  uneven  fight  raged 
for  fifty  years.  In  the  meantime  the  tidings  of  Chris- 
tianity came  to  the  North  itself.  Thereafter  the  inva- 
sions of  Ireland  became  part  of  the  tremendous  and 
almost  successful  effort  of  the  Scandinavians  to  con- 
quer the  British  Isles. 

For  one  must  see  the  Scandinavians  as  penetrating 
Russia,  conquering  Sicily,  sailing  up  the  Seine  and  the 
Thames,  settling  Normandy,  holding  the  Hebrides  for 
centuries,  dominating  England,  and  seeking  to  bring 
all  Ireland  under  control. 

When  the  Norsemen  first  got  their  footing  in  Ireland 
it  was  as  predatory  chiefs.  The  names  Carlingford, 
Strangford,  Howth,  Dublin,  the  Skerries,  Leixlip,  Wex- 
ford,  Waterford,  and  Limerick  testify  to  their  suc- 
cesses, which  built  up  towns  where  the  Irish  knew  no 
towns.  The  heathens,  as  they  were,  reached  a  Dublin 
which  was  a  cluster  of  huts.  They  made  it  a  stockaded 
settlement.  By  853  Olaf  and  Ivar  were  joint  kings 
of  Dublin.  For  many  years  they  had  no  great  secur- 
ity in  Ireland,  though  Dublin  was  a  safe  base  for  their 
attacking  Britain,  but  their  incursions  scarred  and 
seared  the  eastern  half  of  Ireland  from  879  to  920. 

55 


The  Story  of  the  Irish  Nation 

The  downfall  of  Cashel  allowed  the  Norse  to  slip  round 
the  coast  in  914.  In  that  year  they  secured  Water- 
ford,  held  it  against  Niall,  and  in  920  secured  Lim- 
erick. Within  a  few  years  they  were  thick  in  the  con- 
flicts of  West  Munster.  Brian  beat  them  on  the  plain 
where  Limerick  Junction  is  now  situated,  twenty  miles 
from  Limerick.  After  his  brother  was  murdered  with 
the  connivance  of  the  Cashel  chiefs,  Brian  went  on  to 
striking  victories.  In  these  conflicts,  however,  the 
Norse  were  not  lone-handed.  They  merged  with  the 
Irish  in  the  general  tribal  alignments  of  the  time. 

10 

Brian's  victories  gave  him  a  very  great  prestige. 
A  man  of  intellectual  force,  he  saw  the  waste  of  dissen- 
sion and  the  necessity  for  a  strong  central  power.  He 
equally  realized  that  Ireland  must  be  cleared  of  "for- 
eigners." He  proceeded  firmly,  a  diplomat  rather  than 
a  conqueror. 

Except  for  the  forces  of  Leinster,  which  evaded  the 
fight  at  Clontarf  on  Good  Friday,  1014,  all  Brian's 
ranks  stood  close  against  the  Fair  Foreigners  and  the 
Dark  Foreigners.  The  Irish  chronicles  describe  the 
stupendous  combat.  It  is  such  as  one  might  expect 
from  two  races  who  regarded  valor  as  the  true  test  of 

56 


The  Gaelic  Period:  Christian 

a  man  and  the  chronicle  as  valor's  celebration.  Lined 
up  on  both  sides  as  shock  troops,  gold  helmets  gleam- 
ing, standards  waving,  poisoned  spears  and  swords  the 
weapons,  at  least  three  thousand  Norse  were  in  the 
end  to  meet  their  death.  "There  was  a  field  and  a  ditch 
between  us  and  them,"  reports  one  witness,  "and  the 
sharp  wind  of  spring  coming  over  them  toward  us ;  and 
it  was  no  longer  than  the  time  that  a  cow  could  be 
milked,  or  two  cows,  that  we  continued  there,  when  not 
one  person  of  the  two  hosts  could  recognize  another — 
we  were  so  covered  as  well  our  heads  as  our  faces  and 
our  clothes  with  the  drops  of  gory  blood  carried  by  the 
force  of  the  sharp  cold  wind  which  passed  over  them 
to  us." 

The  battle  began  at  high  tide.  Lasting  until  high 
tide,  the  laboring  Norsemen  in  armor  were  pursued 
across  the  Liffey  and  slain  "in  hundreds  and  in  bat- 
talions." A  heap  of  their  weapons  was  dug  up  some 
years  ago  in  Rutland  Square. 

Then  it  was  that  Brian's  daughter  spoke: 

"It  appears  to  me,"  said  she,  "that  the  Foreigners  have  gained 
their  inheritance." 

"What  is  that,  O  girl?"  said  Amhlaibh's  son  [a  Norwegian], 

"The  Foreigners  are  only  going  into  the  sea  as  is  hereditary  to 
them.  I  know  not  whether  it  is  the  heat  that  is  on  them,  but  never- 
theless they  tarry  not  to  be  milked." 

The  son  of  Amhlaibh  became  angered  with  her,  and  he  gave 
her  a  blow  which  knocked  a  tooth  out  of  her  head. 

57 


The  Story  of  the  Irish  Nation 

Brian,  too  old  to  fight,  stayed  with  his  horse-boy 
behind  the  battle.  There  he  prayed  for  victory,  asking 
between  times  "how  the  battalions  were  circumstanced." 
"I  see  them,"  the  horse-boy  reports,  "and  closely  con- 
founded are  they  .  .  .  and  not  more  loud  to  me  would 
be  the  blow  in  Tomar's  wood  if  seven  battalions  were 
cutting  it  down  than  are  the  resounding  blows  on  the 
heads  and  bones  and  skulls  of  them."  Now  the  banner 
of  Murchadh  is  standing,  now  it  droops.  .  .  .  The  old 
king  hears  that  the  Foreigners  are  defeated,  and  all  but 
one  group  fled.  He  refuses  to  leave  the  field.  He 
foretells  his  death,  giving  orders  for  his  burial  at 
Armagh.  Then  the  Northman  Brodir  reaches  him  and 
slays  him,  to  meet  his  terrible  fate  in  a  few  minutes 
at  the  hands  of  Brian's  followers. 

A  touch  of  chivalry: 

Then  flight  broke  out  throughout  all  the  host. 

Thorstein  stood  still  while  all  the  others  fled  and  tied  his  shoe- 
string. Then  Kerthialfad  asked  him  why  he  ran  not  as  the  others. 

"No,  thank  you,"  said  Thorstein,  "I  can't  get  home  to-night;  I 
live  in  Iceland." 

Kerthialfad  gave  him  peace. 

As    described    in    the    Icelandic    record,    Brian    was 

victor : 

I  have  been  where  warriors  wrestled, 
High  in  Erin  sang  the  sword, 
Boss  to  boss  met  many  bucklers, 
Steel  rung  sharp  on   rattling  helm; 

58 


The  Gaelic  Period:  Christian 

I  can  tell  of  all  their  struggle; 
Sigurd  fell  in  flight  of  spear; 
Brian  fell,  but  kept  his  kingdom 
Ere  he  lost  one  drop  of  blood. 

This  battle  did  not  drive  the  Scandinavians  from 
Dublin,  but  it  saved  the  Irish  nation.  In  1016  Cnut 
conquered  England,  but  Ireland  could  not  be  reckoned 
in  the  Scandinavian  empire  of  the  Northft 


The  Vikings  Come 


59 


CHAPTER  III 

CLONTARF   TO    THE   NORMAN   INVASION 


BRIAN  BORU  had  a  strong  policy  for  Ireland. 
"The  peace  of  Erin  was  proclaimed  by  him,  both 
of  churches  and  people,  so  that  peace  throughout  all 
Erin  was  made  in  his  time."  He  dealt  severely  with 
criminals,  stopped  trespass  and  robbery,  repaired 
fortresses  and  forts,  made  bridges  and  causeways  and 
highroads.  He  rebuilt  the  monasteries  that  the  North- 
men had  shattered,  constructed  churches  and  at  least 
one  round  tower,  and  reestablished  the  schools.  He 
sent  men  abroad  "to  buy  books  beyond  the  sea  and  the 
great  ocean."  The  word  boru,  which  means  tribute, 
was  not,  however,  attached  to  his  name  for  nothing. 
We  learn  from  mac  Liag  how  the  flocks  and  herds  came 
pouring  to  his  palace  at  Kincora,  in  Clare.  Many  a 
fat  hog,  and  many  a  fat  cow,  and  a  hundred  and  fifty 
butts  of  wine  from  the  Danes  of  Dublin  and  a  tun  of 

60 


Clontarf  to  the  Norman  Invasion 

wine  for  every  day  in  the  year  from  the  Danes  of 
Limerick. 

But,  like  so  many  strong  rulers  who  seize  power 
irregularly,  Brian  Boru  conquered  a  sphere  of  respon- 
sibility which  he  left  no  one  to  fill.  It  is  true  that  he 
broke  the  Northmen.  He  freed  the  territory  where  a 
cow  "durst  not  be  milked  for  an  infant  of  one  night, 
nor  for  a  sick  person,  but  must  be  kept  for  the  steward 
or  bailiff  or  soldier  of  the  foreigners."  But  to  do  this 
effectively  he  had  to  override  the  succession  to  the  high- 
kingship,  and  the  men  who  came  after  him  copied  only 
his  irregularity.  Till  well  after  the  coming  of  the 
Normans  the  O'Conors  of  Connacht,  the  O'Neills  of 
Tyrone,  the  MacMurroughs  of  Leinster,  and  the 
O'Briens  of  Thomond  kept  the  kingship  in  contest  and 
reigned,  if  at  all,  "with  opposition."  When  the  reign- 
ing chiefs  made  common  cause  and  restored  the  mon- 
archy in  1258  it  was  only  for  a  few  years. 

This  situation  seems  anarchical,  from  the  point  of 
view  of  modern  city-dwellers,  who  cannot  survive  for 
six  months  without  a  strong  central  government.  But 
in  the  age  of  Brian  Boru,  we  must  recollect,  the  modern 
military  state  had  not  developed.  Commerce  was 
young.  Tuns  of  wine,  we  have  seen,  came  overseas  to 

61 


The  Story  of  the  Irish  Nation 

Ireland.  For  many  centuries  "noble  clothes'*  were  sold 
at  the  Kildare  fair  by  Greek-speaking  Gauls,  and  for- 
eign gold  was  weighed  out  and  paid  for  Irish  hides  and 
salted  meat  and  wool.  From  the  sixth  century  Spain 
had  traded  with  Ireland,  and  for  many  centuries — up 
to  1170 — the  English  slave  was  an  article  on  the  Irish 
market.  But,  in  spite  of  the  sea-power  of  the  North- 
men and  the  international  commerce  which  followed 
piracy,  trade  had  not  yet  demanded  or  matured  the 
type  of  state  to  which  we  are  now  habituated.  Dis- 
order was  prevalent  everywhere  in  the  North. 

The  massacre  of  the  Danes  in  England  in  1002  was 
scarcely  an  orderly  event,  and  yet  Angle-land  was  too 
feeble  to  emancipate  itself  even  by  massacre.  "Wessex, 
Mercia,  and  Northumbria,"  says  John  Richard  Green, 
"remained  separate  political  bodies  which  no  efforts  of 
force  or  policy  seemed  able  to  fuse  into  one." 

Under  Harthacnut  (1040-42)  there  was  an  inferno. 
"Every  tenth  man  was  killed,  the  rest  sold  for  slaves, 
and  JElf  red's  eyes  torn  out  at  Ely.  Harthacnut,  more 
savage  even  than  his  predecessor,  dug  up  his  brother's 
body  and  flung  it  into  a  marsh;  while  a  rising  at  Wor- 
cester against  his  hus-carls  was  punished  by  the  burn- 
ing of  the  town  and  the  pillage  of  the  shire." 

And  yet  it  was  these  barbarous  Northmen,  now  be- 

62 


Clontarf  to  the  Norman  Invasion 


Ireland 


come  the  Normans,  who,  under  William  the  Bastard, 
Duke  of  Normandy,  completed  the  conquest  of  England 
in  1066. 

63 


The  Story  of  the  Irish  Nation, 

But  order,  as  we  now  conceive  it,  was  far  to  seek 
even  in  the  France  which  mingled  Northman  with 
Frank.  "Brute  force,"  James  Harvey  Robinson  tells 
us,  "governed  almost  everything  outside  of  the  church. 
The  feudal  obligations  were  not  fulfilled  except  when 
the  lord  was  sufficiently  powerful  to  enforce  them.  The 
bond  of  vassalage  and  fidelity,  which  was  the  sole  prin- 
ciple of  order,  was  constantly  broken  and  faith  was 
violated  by  both  vassal  and  lord.  .  .  . 

"We  may  say  that  war,  in  all  its  forms,  was  the  law 
of  the  feudal  world.  War  formed  the  chief  occupation 
of  the  restless  aristocracy  who  held  the  land  and  exer- 
cised the  governmental  control.  The  inveterate  habits 
of  a  military  race,  the  discord  provoked  by  ill-defined 
rights  or  by  self-interest  and  covetousness,  all  led  to 
constant  bloody  struggles  in  which  each  lord  had  for 
his  enemies  all  those  about  him." 


So  much  for  the  high  civilization  of  these  days  of 
the  first  pendulum-clock.  What  is  clear  is  that,  under- 
neath, (1)  wealth  was  accumulating,  (2)  the  contacts 
of  the  Northmen  were  spreading  the  pollen  of  Byzan- 
tine civilization  and  importing  certain  valuable  non- 
feudal  administrative  principles,  (3)  the  trading  towns 

64 


Clontarf  to  the  Norman  Invasion 

were  growing  in  importance,  (4)  the  church  was  becom- 
ing spiritually,  politically,  and  economically  strong, 
as  evidenced  in  the  Crusades.  But  it  was  a  consider- 
able period  before  the  binding  effects  of  a  money 
economy,  which  enabled  the  expensively  armed  Nor- 
mans to  employ  Welsh  and  Flemish  mercenaries,  swung 
out  in  the  aggressive  policy  of  Henry  II.  William 
the  Conqueror,  son  of  Robert  the  Devil,  it  is  true,  de- 
signed to  invade  Ireland  after  he  had  floored  the  Eng- 
lish with  a  single  blow,  turned  them  into  Norman  ten- 
ants, monopolized  their  bishoprics  and  places  of  power, 
and  bribed  the  Danish  fleet  not  to  attack  him.  But 
he  was  kept  busy  in  England  and  France ;  a  state  based 
on  feudalism  was  a  state  based  on  force.  Good  as  it 
was  for  England  to  have  the  master-builders  and  arti- 
sans of  castle  and  cathedral,  the  weavers  of  Flanders, 
the  merchants  of  Caen  and  Rouen,  it  was  still  no 
amusement  for  the  common  people  to  endure  the  fright- 
fulness  of  William. 

"Fugitives  he  sought  out  and  put  to  the  sword,  But 
even  so  he  was  not  satisfied.  Innocent  and  guilty  were 
involved  in  indiscriminate  slaughter.  Houses  were 
destroyed,  flocks  and  herds  exterminated.  Supplies  of 
food  and  farm  implements  were  heaped  together  and 
burned.  With  deliberate  purpose,  cruelly  carried  out, 

65 


The  Story  of  the  Irish  Nation 

it  was  made  impossible  for  men  to  live  through  a  thou- 
sand square  miles.  Years  afterward  the  country  was 
still  a  desert;  it  was  generations  before  it  had  fully 
recovered."  (G.  B.  Adams.) 

Perhaps  it  was  better  for  the  common  English  to  take 
it  lying  down,  but  the  Conquest  imposed  a  ruling  class. 
It  stratified  England  economically  in  a  manner  which 
the  Revolution  of  1688  did  not  eradicate,  and  which 
has  not  yet  been  eradicated.  The  town  laborer  and 
the  country  laborer  had  a  long  misery  ahead  of  them 
in  Merrie  England. 

The  Irish,  on  the  other  hand,  had  escaped  the  Cnuts 
and  Harthacnuts.  Not  until  Normandy  and  England 
were  better  welded,  and  the  Papacy  better  linked  with 
the  new  imperialism,  and  sea-power  more  secure,  could 
the  Normans  try  their  arts  on  Ireland.  When  they 
did  so,  however,  they  did  it  with  the  plea  that  "the 
natives  were  commonly  engaged  in  tearing  the  bowels 
of  their  fatherland  by  their  intestine  feuds." 


The  church  was  the  first  Irish  body  to  feel  the  pull 
of  the  changing  world.     Men  like  Cormac  mac  Culinan 

66 


Clontarf  to  the  Norman  Invasion 

of  Cashel  (d.  908),  who  knew  Danish,  Latin,  Greek,  and 
Hebrew  as  well  as  Gaelic,  left  worthy  successors  in 
Clonmacnois,  Armagh  and  Monasterboice;  and  the 
Irish  monks  of  the  twelfth  century  spread  to  Ratisbon, 
Wiirzburg,  Nuremberg,  Constanz,  Vienna,  Eichstadt. 
But  a  different  story  was  now  heard  from  the  time  when 
the  monks  of  Lindisfarne  "looked  for  their  ecclesiastical 
tradition,  not  to  Rome,  but  to  Ireland ;  and  quoted  for 
their  guidance  the  instructions,  not  of  Gregory,  but  of 
Columba."  (Green.)  Anselm  and  Lanfranc  at  Bee 
represent  the  birth  of  a  new  power  in  Europe.  The 
power  of  Rome  was  working  with  and  through  feudal- 
ism. From  St.  Bernard  (visited  in  1139  by  St. 
Malachy  at  Clairvaux),  we  find  the  disparaging  esti- 
mate in  which  the  ancient  Irish  Church  is  already  held. 
It  is  "outside"  and  weak.  Abuses  in  morality  and 
discipline  are  insisted  upon,  but  especially  abuses,  bar- 
barisms, which  indicate  its  isolation  and  independence. 
Synods  in  1158  and  1162  precede  the  Synod  of  Cashel, 
which  marks  the  crushing  subordination  of  the  Irish 
Church  to  the  Normans.  Meanwhile,  up  to  that  feudal 
triumph,  the  early  Irish  Romanesque  architecture,  the 
sculpture  of  great  crosses,  the  illumination  of  manu- 
scripts and  such  beautiful  work  as  the  Ardagh  chalice 

67 


The  Story  of  the  Irish  Nation 

and  the  cross  of  Cong,  were  thriving  under  ecclesiasti- 
cal influence.  After  the  Normans  the  church  ceased  to 
be  free,  and  these  creative  impulses  dried  at  the  source. 
Dermot  MacMurrough,  King  of  Leinster,  is  the 
human  link  between  Ireland  and  the  Normans,  but  be- 
fore telling  Dermot's  story  one  must  first  glance  at  the 
geography  of  Leinster.  "The  whole  spirit  and  policy 
of  Leinster,"  as  G.  A.  J.  Cole  so  admirably  explains, 
"were  dominated  by  the  great  chain  of  granite,  eighty 
miles  in  length,  that  served  as  a  natural  fortress,  ap- 
proached only  by  narrow  lateral  glens.  The  rocky 
walls  of  these  valleys,  with  their  wooded  clefts,  pro- 
vided ambushes  that  told  strong  in  defense."  ("Ireland 
the  Outpost,"  p.  45.)  This  chain  of  Leinster  moun- 
tains, facing  the  southeastern  approaches  to  Dublin 
and  the  wooded  plains,  was  to  mean  much  in  Irish  his- 
tory from  the  beginning  up  to  1550,  or  from  the  age 
of  iron  to  the  age  of  gunpowder.  Unlike  the  chiefs  of 
the  cow  country,  the  Leinster  chiefs  could  take  the 
aggressive.  On  the  defensive  they  were  virtually  im- 
pregnable. The  military  road  of  1798  is  a  testimony 
to  the  importance  of  holding  "the  barrier  of  Leinster." 
It  is  equally  a  testimony  to  the  initial  advantages  of 
Dermot  MacMurrough  in  being  able  to  force  his  en- 
emies to  bite  on  granite. 

68 


Clontarf  to  tlie  Norman  Invasion 


Dermot  collected  enemies.  The  dominant  man  in 
Leinster,  he  made  life  unpleasant  for  his  compatriots 
in  the  plains  by  his  "grievous  and  intolerable  manner." 
In  1152,  during  the  absence  of  O'Ruarc  of  Meath,  he 
eloped  with  the  elderly  Devorgilla,  O'Ruarc's  wife. 
This  episode  apparently  closed  with  Devorgilla's  return 
to  her  husband,  but  by  1166  Dermot  had  become  so 
detested  that  he  was  dispossessed  of  his  territory  and 
forced  to  leave  the  country.  He  thereupon  made  his 
way  to  Aquitaine  to  enlist  Henry  II. 

"Now  Dermot  was  a  man  tall  of  stature  and  stout 
of  frame;  a  soldier  whose  heart  was  in  the  fray,  and 
held  valiant  among  his  own  nation.  From  often  shout- 
ing his  battle-cry,  his  voice  had  become  hoarse.  A 
man  who  liked  better  to  be  feared  by  all  than  loved 
by  any,"  so  the  inimitable  Gerald  de  Barri,  who  came 
to  Ireland  with  the  Normans. 

Henry,  as  we  shall  see  later,  had  a  trump  up  his 
sleeve  in  the  game  for  Ireland,  but  he  was  not  ready 
to  play.  Very  busy,  as  usual,  he  had  little  time  for 
Dermot.  "He  received  him  kindly  and  graciously 
enough,"  but  despatched  him  to  England,  saying:  "We 
have  taken  Dermot,  Prince  of  the  men  of  Leinster,  into 

69 


The  Story  of  the  Irish  Nation 


the  bosom  of  our  grace  and  good  will.     Wheref  ore,  too, 
whosoever  within  the  bounds  of  our  dominions  shall  be 


Norman   Soldiers 


willing  to  lend  aid  to  him,  as  being  our  vassal  and  liege- 
man, in  the  recovery  of  his  own,  let  him  know  that  he 
hath  our  favor  and  permission  to  that  end." 

70 


Clontarf  to  the  Norman  Invasion 

The  grandiose  manner  was  already  in  vogue.  But 
at  Bristol  Dermot  had  to  find  the  lads  who  would  do 
business.  He  began  by  making  a  splash  with  Henry's 
money.  He  "made  liberal  offers  both  of  land  and 
money  to  many  persons,  but  without  effect."  At  last, 
however,  he  met  his  man.  Richard  FitzGilbert  de 
Clare,  son  of  Strongbow  and  himself  called  Strongbow, 
came  to  see  the  big,  tough  Irishman.  What  would  Der- 
mot put  up?  Dermot  said,  my  eldest  daughter,  Eva 
(Aoife)  and  succession  to  the  kingdom!  Knowing 
nothing  of  Irish  succession,  this  offer  tempted  Strong- 
bow,  but  first  he  let  a  few  of  the  lesser  fellows  under 
Robert  FitzStephen  go  over  in  1169  to  try  it  out. 
And  with  them  he  took  the  precaution  of  sending  his 
lanky  uncle,  Hervey  de  Montmaurice,  "a  man  of  broken 
fortunes,  without  equipment  or  money ;  not  so  much  to 
take  a  part  in  the  fighting  as  to  act  as  a  spy  for"  him. 

5 

Landing  near  Wexford  with  300  Welsh  archers  in 
May,  1169,  FitzStephen  and  his  followers  promptly 
went  against  the  Ostmen  or  Northmen  in  the  walled 
town  of  Wexford.  The  Northmen  repulsed  them 
hardily,  but  on  a  Sunday  morning  sent  out  two  bishops 
and  some  citizens  to  find  out  what  was  behind  the 

71 


The  Story  of  the  Irish  Nation 

attack,  and,  debating  it  with  MacMurrough  and  his 
mercenaries,  decided  to  make  terms.  Donnell  of  Os- 
sory  was  not  so  complacent.  Retreating  before  the 
heavily  armed  Norman  leaders  (Maurice  de  Prender- 
gast,  Meiler  FitzHenry,  Milo  FitzGerald,  and  the  rest), 
he  harried  them  desperately  from  the  woods  on  their 
return  to  camp;  and  although  they  managed  to  kill 
some  hundreds  of  Donnell's  men  in  a  flanking  move- 
ment, Maurice  de  Prendergast  was  sufficiently  impressed 
to  swap  masters  and  go  over  to  Donald  of  Ossory. 

The  news  of  the  knights  in  full  armor  traveled  fast. 
The  high-king,  Rory  (Roderic)  O'Conor  of  Connacht, 
was  a  slow  man,  but  he  sent  a  messenger  of  peace  to 
MacMurrough  in  the  name  of  "their  common  country," 
offering  to  acknowledge  Dermot  king  of  Leinster.  In 
response  to  this  offer  Dermot  actually  agreed  to  peace. 
He  acknowledged  O'Conor  high-king  of  Ireland,  gave 
his  own  son  Conor  as  hostage,  and  secretly  pledged 
himself  to  have  no  more  to  do  with  foreigners.  But 
Maurice  FitzGerald,  then  arriving  at  Wexford  with 
two  more  ships  of  fighting  men,  Dermot  flatly  went 
back  on  his  word,  hurried  to  secure  Dublin,  sent  Fitz- 
Stephen  to  help  O'Brien  of  Thomond  against  O'Conor, 
and  designed  to  become  high-king  himself.  For  this 
purpose  he  needed  his  Normans.  To  FitzStephen  and 

72 


Clontarf  to  the  Norman  Invasion 

FitzGerald  in  turn,  who  in  each  case  were  so  clumsy  as 
to  be  already  married,  he  tendered  his  daughter  Eva, 
and  to  both  of  them,  with  a  broad  disregard  for  Irish 
law,  he  gave  grants  in  fee.  Meanwhile  Strongbow  had 
learned  of  the  successes  of  the  preliminary  force.  Pick- 
ing up  everybody  along  the  way  to  his  embarkation  in 
Wales,  he  rolled  up  200  men-at-arms  and  1000  archers. 
He  landed  near  Waterford  in  August,  1170.  The  cap- 
ture of  this  Gael-Gall  town  was  a  bloody  fight.  The 
two  Sitrics  were  killed,  and  Ragnal  and  O'Phelan  spared 
for  good  reason.  At  the  first  moment  Strongbow 
wedded  Eva,  who,  in  the  most  literal  sense,  was  given 
away  by  her  father. 

The  situation  was  now  sufficiently  serious.  Rory 
O'Conor  was  probably  not  alarmed  by  the  intrusion  of 
foreigners  as  such;  that  was  no  new  story.  But  Der- 
mot  MacMurrough  had  the  O'Briens  on  his  side,  and 
by  the  evidence  of  every  encounter  these  men  in  armor 
were  proving  formidable.  It  was  known  that  they  had 
a  new  military  technic,  had  conquered  England,  and 
were  builders  of  castles — had  aeroplanes,  so  to  speak, 
and  machine-guns  and  tanks.  A  religious  offensive 
was  at  the  same  time  being  conducted.  The  fact  that 
Henry  II  had  not  come  gave  some  reassurance,  but  by 
a  rapid  excursion  over  the  mountain  ridges  and  through 

73 


The  Story  of  the  Irish  Nation 

Glendalough  Dermot  MacMurrough  had  reached  Dub- 
lin with  a  handful  of  Normans  and  rushed  the  walls 
while  a  parley  was  being  made.  The  Norsemen  took 
to  their  ships.  O'Conor  decided  to  act.  He  advanced 
to  besiege  Dublin,  but  was  caught  napping  in  a  sally 
which,  by  Norman  accounts,  was  quite  one-sided : 

At  prime  we  numbered  of  the  kerne 

Full  fifteen  hundred  dead; 
While  stricken  of  our  Engiishrie 

A  single  footman  bled. 

It  was  a  most  threatening  invasion.  Ireland,  in  the 
language  of  the  Four  Masters,  was  "a  trembling  sod." 
But  the  very  fact  of  this  first  success  aroused  Henry  II 
to  anger.  He  knew  his  compatriots  and  wanted  no 
rivals.  He  was  furious  when  Strongbow's  uncle  Hervey 
came  to  him  in  Gloucester.  Hervey  pledged  fealty ; 
gave  him  Dublin  and  Waterford  and  Wexford  and  the 
castles,  and  made  him  sole  legatee  of  Ireland.  This 
placated  the  full-blooded  Henry,  but  he  still  vibrated. 
Ever  since  1155  he  had  planned  to  devolve  Ireland  on 
some  member  of  his  house  and  in  that  year  he  had  se- 
cured his  trump  card  from  Nicholas  Breakspear,  Pope 
Adrian — the  only  English  pope.  This  was  the  needful 
moral  window-dressing  which  was  the  beginning  of  Eng- 
lish foreign  policy.  It  was  the  papal  "bull"  called 
"Laudabiliter."  It  laid  down  that  the  Irish  were  an 

74 


Clontarf  to  the  Norman  Invasion 

"unlearned  and  savage  race."  It  also  laid  down  that 
Henry  was  full  of  enthusiasm  for  religion,  in  love  with 
the  creed,  and  desirous  "to  instruct  the  Irish  nation  in 
the  ways  of  virtue."  In  the  most  eloquent  phrases, 
worthy  of  their  sacred  cause,  Henry  was  despatched 
to  check  crime,  correct  immorality,  engraft  virtue,  and 
glorify  the  religion  of  Christ — to  which  end  the  Irish 
people  "shall  receive  you  with  fitting  honor  and  do 
homage  to  you  as  their  overlord."  This  in  1155. 

But  1170  was  not  a  happy  year  for  Henry  IPs  flour- 
ishing the  "Laudabiliter."  It  was  the  year  of  the  mur- 
der of  Thomas  Becket,  Archbishop  of  Canterbury,  by 
Henry's  over-enthusiastic  friends.  Still  angry,  he  as- 
sembled 400  ships,  500  knights,  4000  men-at-arms,  and 
several  thousand  archers  and  sailed  for  Waterford. 
He  reached  there  October,  1171.  He  imprisoned  Fitz- 
Stephen  and  scowled  generally.  "The  island  was  now 
tranquil,"  says  Gerald  de  Barri,  "in  the  presence  of 
the  king,  and  enjoyed  the  blessings  of  peace  and  rest.'* 
MacMurrough  and  his  friends  submitted  to  him.  From 
beyond  the  Shannon  Roderic  said  "the  whole  of  Ireland 
was  rightly  his,"  and  not  until  1175  did  he  conclude  a 
treaty.  This  he  did  in  the  Treaty  of  Windsor,  which, 
as  G.  B.  Adams  says,  Henry  II  paid  no  attention  to 
"any  longer  than  suited  his  purpose." 

75 


The  Story  of  the  Irish  Nation 

Meanwhile,  on  his  visit  to  Ireland,  the  "Laudabiliter" 
was  not  so  much  mentioned.  He  had  still  to  answer 
for  Becket.  A  synod  of  the  clergy  met  at  Cashel,  pre- 
sided over  by  the  Papal  Legate  Christian.  It  was  a 
mild  synod.  It  ordained  that  children  should  be  bap- 
tized in  water,  not  milk;  that  tithes  be  paid  to  the 
churches ;  that  marriages  be  solemnized ;  that  church 
lands  be  exempt  from  imposts ;  that  the  clergy  be  ex- 
empt from  the  "eric";  that  wills  be  made  in  due  form 
and  burials  with  due  obsequies ;  and,  the  real  point,  that 
the  usages  of  the  Irish  Church  should  conform  to  the 
Anglican.  Thus  the  "unlearned  and  savage  race"  was 
to  be  redeemed.  Henry  went  on  to  Dublin,  named  him- 
self "Lord  of  Ireland,"  chartered  Dublin  to  Bristol, 
feudalized  the  Pale,  held  court  from  November  to 
Easter  Monday,  and  left  to  answer  for  the  murder  of 
Becket  before  he  had  ringed  the  Dublin  district  with 
castles.  He  did  not  depart  until  he  saw  to  it  that  in 
future  Ireland  should  have  none  but  Norman  arch- 
bishops. 


Now,  what  were  the  ideas  of  the  Norman  invaders 
and  what  manner  of  men  were  they? 

Their  ideas,  we  may  take  it,  varied  with  their  dis- 

76 


Clontarf  to  the  Norman  Invasion 

positions,  but  on  the  whole  were  simple.  They  were 
strong,  strong-smelling,  hard-fighting,  extremely  defi- 
nite, and  hard-headed  petty  barons,  ready  to  call  Henry 
their  overlord  if  they  must,  but  looking  on  Ireland  as 
a  good  thing  and  their  own.  They  worked  under  Der- 
mot,  to  begin  with,  but  they  felt  the  superiority  that 
men  encased  in  hardware  always  feel  for  opponents 
who  have  less  hardware.  Being  Normans,  however, 
they  equally  despised  their  English  mercenaries,  whose 
speech  they  could  not  understand,  and  their  Welsh  con- 
scripts, who  were  valued  merely  for  their  nimbleness 
and  their  archery.  "Our  men  in  Ireland,"  wrote  de 
Barri  concerning  the  second  instalment  in  1185,  "fell 
into  three  distinct  divisions — the  Normans,  the  Eng- 
lish, and  my  own  countrymen  [the  Welsh,  who  were 
very  numerous].  We  of  the  court  came  mostly  in 
contact  with  the  first;  we  had  few  dealings  with  the 
second,  with  the  last  none." 

They  nominally  formed  a  close  ring  of  feudal  con- 
federates, "thirsting  for  plunder  and  renown,"  but 
inside  that  ring  there  was  intense  animosity  and  com- 
bativeness.  One  has  only  to  turn  to  the  chronicle  of 
the  Rev.  Gerald  de  Barri  (related  to  the  FitzHenrys 
and  the  FitzGeralds  and  the  FitzStephens)  to  gather 
the  fear,  hatred,  and  rivalry  which  seethed  within  this 

77 


The  Story  of  the  Irish  Nation 

grasping  enterprise.     The  outcome  was  not  to  be  won- 
dered at. 

In  history  written  under  the  influence  and  direction 
of  Norman  ascendancy  a  great  deal  is  made  of  "con- 
stitutional liberties,"  starting  with  eulogies  of  Magna 
Charta  (1215).  But  this  is  against  the  genius  of 
history,  which,  unlike  literature,  is  perverted  by  the 
romantic  spirit.  Magna  Charta  was  chiefly  an  in- 
cident in  the  struggle  between  crown  and  baron.  It 
was  "a  baronial  manifesto,  seeking  chiefly  to  redress 
the  grievances  of  the  promoters,  and  mainly  selfish  in 
motive."  (McKechnie.)  In  Ireland  such  "bulwarks 
of  liberty"  could  not  be  erected  by  the  scrambling 
barons.  For  four  hundred  years  their  occupation  was 
precarious  and  dwindling.  The  main  purpose  of  legis- 
lation in  Ireland  during  this  period  did  not  touch  the 
Irish,  who,  though  "occupied,"  were  independent.  It 
strove  in  a  futile  way  to  keep  the  Norman  occupiers 
in  line.  It  was  not  until  the  wealthier  country  tem- 
porarily settled  its  own  disorders  and  came  to  Ireland 
with  gunpowder  that  the  English  path  was  blasted 
through  the  Irish  nation. 

8 

The  chief  actors  in  this  drama  we  have  from  Gerald 
de  Barri:  Strongbow,  "a  man  with  reddish  hair  and 

78 


Clontarf  to  the  Norman  Invasion 

freckled  face,  bright  gray  eyes,  delicate,  even  feminine 
features,  a  high  voice  and  a  short  neck,"  seems  to  have 
been  the  bottle-shouldered  type  of  aristocrat,  "rather 
a  tactician  than  a  fighting  man."  "A  man  whose  fam- 
ily was  better  than  his  fortune;  who  had  more  blue 
blood  than  brains,  and  whose  pedigree  was  longer  than 
his  purse,"  he  was  of  little  importance,  dying  in  1176. 
He  was,  in  any  case,  no  match  for  Henry  II,  the  Roose- 
velt of  his  time,  "a  man  with  reddish  hair,  a  big  bullet- 
head,  bloodshot  gray  eyes  which  in  anger  flashed 
fiercely,  a  fiery  face,  and  a  broken  voice.  He  had  a 
bull-neck,  a  square  chest,  muscular  arms,  and  a  fleshy 
body.  .  .  .  He  was  attached  beyond  measure  to  the  pleas- 
ures of  the  chase.  .  .  .  He  was  by  nature  not  a  truthful 
man,  and  would  habitually  break  his  word  without  the 
slightest  excuse.  .  .  .  Scarcely  could  he  spare  an  hour 
to  attend  the  holy  sacrifice  of  the  mass,  and  even  then 
so  great,  forsooth,  was  the  press  of  public  business 
that  he  spent  more  time  in  discussion  and  conversation 
than  in  prayer." 

Maurice  FitzGerald,  related  to  de  Barri,  was  an 
unassuming,  dignified  man,  "his  features  regular,  his 
complexion  embrowned  by  exposure;  of  medium  height." 
Reimund  FitzGerald  "was  a  man  not  much  above  middle 
height,  but  very  stout.  He  had  rather  curly  yellow 

79 


The  Story  of  the  Irish  Nation 

hair,  large  round  gray  eyes,  a  somewhat  high  nose,  and 
a  sunburnt  face  of  bright  and  cheerful  expression. 
Although  corpulent,  the  natural  vivacity  of  his  tem- 
perament seemed  to  carry  off  his  bulky  appearance. 
.  .  .  Patient  in  trying  circumstances,  the  extremes  of 
heat  and  cold  he  bore  with  equal  fortitude,  and  no  toil 
drew  from  him  a  murmur."  Meiler  FitzHenry,  not  a 
relative,  "was  a  swarthy  man  with  fierce  black  eyes 
and  a  keen  visage.  Below  the  middle  height,  yet  very 
powerful  .  .  .  intense  his  thirst  for  fame."  Hervey  de 
Montmaurice,  not  a  relative,  "a  tall  man  with  promi- 
nent eyes,  crafty,  plausible  and  false."  John  de  Courci 
"was  a  tall,  fair  man,  with  big-boned,  muscular  limbs, 
large  of  frame  and  powerfully  built.  He  had  great 
personal  strength  and  his  intrepidity  was  remarkable 
...  he  kept  the  country  under  by  building  castles  in 
advantageous  positions  throughout  the  whole  of 
Ulster." 

"FitzStephen  was  a  well-favored  man  of  burly  make 
and  sound  and  vigorous  health ;  in  stature  slightly 
above  the  middle  height.  A  free  liver  and  open-handed, 
he  had  a  hearty  way  with  him;  in  short  was  a  right 
good  fellow,  but  given  overmuch  to  wine  and  women." 

Hugh  de  Laci  was  "a  swarthy  man  with  small,  black, 

deeply  sunken  eyes,  a  flat  nose,  and  his  right  cheek  dis- 

80 


Clontarf  to  the  Norman  Invasion 

figured  down  to  the  chin  by  an  ugly  scar  caused  by  some 
accidental  burn;  a  man  with  a  short  neck  and  a  hairy 
and  muscular  body,  though  small  and  ill-made.  With 
all  this,  however,  he  had  considerable  strength  of  char- 
acter and  resolution,  and  for  temperance  was  a  very 
Frenchman.  He  was  a  careful  man  in  his  private 
affairs,  and  when  in  office  most  vigilant  in  the  discharge 
of  public  business." 

These  were  not  English  Picts,  then.  They  began  to 
run  the  "English-speaking  world"  without  a  word  of 
English.  They  were  the  cool,  military  blond  type  that 
still  persists,  and  the  dark  French  type,  energetic  and 
systematic,  with  which  we  are  familiar.  They  had  two 
rules — to  build  castles  and  hold  land  in  fief — and  they 
gave  no  more  to  the  church  than  they  could  help,  except 
the  verbose  and  jocular  Hervey,  who  gave  himself. 

9 

Through  the  eyes  of  these  confident,  practical,  and 
class-conscious  adventurers  the  conquest  of  Ireland 
looked  easy.  For  their  part,  the  Irish  chiefs  were 
frankly  set  back  by  these  intruders,  especially  by  the 
speed  with  which  the  archers  shot  and  "the  might  of 
the  heavy  men-at-arms."  But  these  novelties  wore  off. 
"By  gradual  and  careful  training  in  the  use  of  the  bow 

81 


The  Story  of  the  Irish  Nation 

and  other  weapons,"  de  Barri  admits  in  a  few  years, 
"by  learning  caution  and  studying  the  art  of  ambush, 
by  the  confidence  gained  from  frequently  engaging  in 
conflict  with  our  troops,  lastly  taught  by  our  very 
successes,  these  Irishmen,  whom  at  first  we  could  rout 
with  ease,  became  able  to  offer  a  stout  resistance." 
This  in  1185.  And  he  adds  solemnly,  "a  campaign  in 
France  is  a  very  different  thing  from  a  campaign  in 
Ireland  or  Wales.  In  the  former  case  it  is  carried  on 
in  an  open  country,  in  the  latter  in  broken  country; 
there  we  have  plains,  here  woods ;  there  armor  is  held 
in  esteem,  here  it  is  reckoned  cumbersome  and  out  of 
place ;  there  victory  is  won  by  weight,  here  by  activity." 
The  Irish  proved  to  be  exceedingly  active.  The  coun- 
try, said  de  Barri,  "should  be  thickly  sown  with  castles 
and  so  strengthened  and  protected."  Connacht,  too 
hard  to  conquer,  too  poor  to  plunder,  must  pay  a  trib- 
ute, but  Limerick  must  be  held.  "It  were  better,  far 
better,  at  first  to  set  up  our  strongholds  by  degrees  in 
suitable  places,  and  to  carry  out  a  coherent  system 
of  castle  building,  feeling  the  way,  so  to  speak,  at  every 
step."  This  was  the  method  of  bringing  Ireland  to 
Christ  and  "engrafting  virtue."  At  the  same  time  a 
public  edict  "should,  as  among  the  Sicilians,  forbid  on 
pain  of  the  severest  penalty  all  bearing  of  arms." 

82 


Clontarf  to  the  Norman  Invasion 

10 

With  the  Normans,  it  is  evident,  the  spirit  was  will- 
ing, but  the  flesh  was  weak.  From  the  twelfth  to  the 
sixteenth  century  Gerald's  outspoken  plan  interpreted 
the  mind  behind  the  Irish  invasion  as  clearly  as  von 
Bissing's  outspoken  plan  interpreted  the  mind  behind 
the  recent  Belgian  invasion.  But  it  was  one  thing  to 
talk  conquest,  another  thing  to  accomplish  it.  A  light 
but  flexible  mesh  of  national  custom,  national  person- 
ality, and  national  will  fell  upon  and  enwrapped  the 
struggling  Normans  until,  in  the  sixteenth  century, 
their  rulers  saw  that  this  creative  and  spiritual  essence 
must  be  destroyed  in  order  to  subdue  Ireland.  The 
lesson  of  the  earlier  period,  however,  is  the  insufficiency 
of  their  means  rather  than  the  uncertainty  of  their 
end.  From  the  start  they  meant  that  Ireland  should 
follow  England's  example — go  to  work  submissively  for 
the  ennobled  and  privileged  feudal  Englishman. 


CHAPTER  IV 

NORMAN    INVASION    TO    HENRY    VIII 


WITH  its  language,  its  land  system,  its  art  and 
music  and  literature,  its  church  and  its  dynas- 
tic succession,  Ireland  was  a  nation  when  it  came  within 
the  sphere  of  Norman  arms.  In  resisting  Norman 
arms  and  the  lordship  of  England  it  was,  for  four 
hundred  years,  increasingly  successful.  But  the  price 
of  resistance  was  exorbitant.  Even  if  Ireland  kept  it 
so  hot  that  the  Normans  stood  from  one  uneasy  foot 
to  the  other,  changing  deputy  after  deputy  and  gen- 
eral after  general,  the  vitality  of  Ireland  was  enslaved 
to  this  single  task  of  dealing  with  an  invader. 

To  Gaelicize  the  new-comers  was  the  involuntary 
instinct  of  the  nation,  which  had  within  itself  the  power 
of  all  healthy  organisms  to  turn  what  it  consumes  into 
the  stream  of  its  blood.  But  the  Norman  process  dis- 
tracted Ireland  between  resisting  and  assimilating,  and 
did  not  give  the  Irish  nation  a  chance. 

84 


Norman  Invasion  to  Henry  VIII 

No  sooner  was  a  generation  of  Norman  intruders 
converted  into  "Irish  rebels,"  people  who  could  live  on 
human  terms  with  the  "Irish  enemy,"  than  there  came 
a  new  batch  of  prelates,  adventurers,  broken  men,  am- 
bitious youngsters,  and  gentlemen  of  the  royal  blood 
who  believed  they  could  saddle  Ireland.  They  could 
not  saddle  Ireland  because  Ireland  was  a  nation  and  a 
personality.  But  this  fact  was  not  clear  even  to  the 
Irishmen  of  the  time.  Many  of  the  chiefs  contradicted 
their  true  position.  They  sought  one  modus  vivendi 
after  another,  responding  to  the  twist  of  circumstance. 
It  seemed  best,  one  year,  to  throw  out  the  Norman. 
At  another  time,  in  different  political  weather,  it  seemed 
best  to  win  him  over.  Whichever  side  of  the  dilemma 
the  Irish  agreed  to  take,  if  they  did  agree,  one  thing 
was  certain,  their  whole  natural  development  was  being 
sacrificed. 

"Now  began,"  says  Dr.  Douglas  Hyde,  "that  perma- 
nent war — very  different,  indeed,  from  what  the  Irish 
tribes  waged  among  themselves — which,  almost  from 
its  very  commencement,  thoroughly  arrested  Irish  de- 
velopment, and  disintegrated  Irish  life"  The  italics 
are  Dr.  Hyde's.  "It  is  not  too  much  to  say  that  for 
three  centuries  after  the  Norman  Conquest  Ireland  pro- 
duced nothing  in  art,  literature,  or  scholarship,  even 

85 


The  Story  of  the  Irish  Nation 

faintly  comparable  to  what  she  had  achieved  before.'* 
"For  four  centuries  after  the  Anglo-Norman,  or  more 
properly  the  Cambro-Norman  invasion,  the  literature 
of  Ireland  seems  to  have  been  chiefly  confined  to  the 
schools  of  the  bards,  and  the  bards  themselves  seem 
to  have  continued  on  the  rather  cut-and-dry  lines  of 
tribal  genealogy,  religious  meditations,  personal  eulo- 
gism,  clan  history,  and  elegies  for  the  dead.  There 
reigns  during  this  period  a  lack  of  imagination  and  of 
initiative  in  literature;  no  new  ground  is  broken,  no 
fresh  paths  entered  on,  no  new  saga-stuff  unearthed, 
no  new  meters  discovered.  .  .  ." 

For  his  part  in  the  death  of  Thomas  Becket,  Henry 
II  did  penance.  Head  bowed  and  barefooted,  he  walked 
his  humble  way  to  the  tomb.  He  kissed  the  spot  where 
Thomas  bled,  he  confessed  to  the  bishops  and  lay  flat 
on  the  ground  weeping  and  praying;  stripped  to  his 
shirt,  he  bent  his  head  and  shoulders  while  the  clergy 
flayed  him,  five  blows  from  each  prelate  and  three  from 
each  monk.  This  for  one  victim,  behind  whom  the 
church  stood  in  grim  power.  But  for  Ireland,  whose 
body  was  broken  and  spat  upon  by  another  group  of 
his  liegemen,  he  neither  wept  nor  prayed.  .  .  .  Men 
amuse  themselves  with  tears  for  single  crimes,  while  they 

86 


Norman  Invasion  to  Henry  VIII 

invade  millions,  spread  famine  and  disaster,  and  bring 
civilizations  to  the  dust. 


Henry  II,  an  English  chronicler  puts  it,  "was  the 
first  monarch  to  drive  from  their  lands  the  loathsome 
Irish  tribes,  and  to  allot  the  conquered  territory  to 
Englishmen  on  feudal  terms."  It  was  indeed  feudal- 
ism, as  this  man  saw,  that  laid  the  ax  to  the  root  of 
Irish  life.  Feudalism  came  not  simply  to  dispossess 
the  chief  for  a  landlord  and  to  change  the  inheritance 
of  the  whole  family  group  into  the  heritage  of  the 
eldest  son;  it  came  also  to  contradict  the  political 
system  by  which  the  people  themselves  elected  the  head 
of  their  territory.  In  England,  after  all,  the  Normans 
came  in  at  the  top  without  destroying  the  social  foun- 
dations of  every  Saxon  tenant.  But  in  Ireland  the 
chiefs  were  dispossessed,  and  when  they  were  dispos- 
sessed the  whole  Irish  population  found  itself  out- 
lawed. 

However  the  purple  cloaks  and  flowing  locks,  the 
easy  horsemanship  and  free  gait  of  the  Irish  chiefs 
might  seem  to  the  courtier  Normans,  these  chiefs,  with 
their  brehons  and  bards,  were  at  the  head  of  a  system 

87 


The  Story  of  the  Irish  Nation 

which  was  the  only  one  the  Irish  as  yet  desired.  Theirs 
was  a  pleasant  land  with  a  way  of  life  that  suited  a 
frugal,  hardy,  outdoor  people.  Their  festivals  and 
games,  their  passion  for  education,  their  enjoyment 
of  poetry  and  music,  pointed  to  a  likelihood  that  Erinn 
in  its  own  manner  would  move  with  the  rest  of  Europe 
into  the  sunlight  of  the  Renaissance.  But  a  savage 
feudalism  fell  on  Ireland  and  held  it  in  a  murderous, 
brainless  deadlock.  From  that  deadlock  Ireland  al- 
most succeeded  in  extricating  itself.  You  watch  Ire- 
land in  that  long  fight,  free  to  escape  time  and  again 
and  yet  itself  so  murderous  and  brainless  in  the  evil 
excitement  of  fighting  that  it  could  not  even  see  the 
open  door  and  the  waiting  road.  When  the  O'Neills 
saw  that  Ireland  must  move  or  be  destroyed,  it  was 
too  late. 

At  first  the  conquest  looked  simple.  On  the  one 
hand  you  had  the  Norman  invaders  superior  in  the  art 
of  war,  frankly  assured  in  morale,  entrenched  in  their 
"legal" status  (except  in  Connacht  and  partsof  Ulster), 
and  associated  with  a  powerful  monarch.  On  the 
other  hand  you  had  the  invaded  Irish  making  prompt 
submissions  to  Henry  II  as  overlord,  brave  and  adroit 
in  fighting  but  not  soldiers  by  profession,  inferior  in 
equipment,  divided  and  subdivided  in  their  social  sys- 

88 


Norman  Invasion  to  Henry  VIII 

tern  and  absolutely  alone  in  the  world,  except  possibly 
for  Rome. 

Easy  as  it  looked,  success  was  illusive.  The  seeds 
of  tragedy  and  failure  were  in  the  enterprise  from  the 
beginning,  and  there  were  plenty  of  swords  to  reap 
them. 


To  get  an  idea  of  the  first  Norman  settlements  you 
may  imagine  a  horizontal  air-line  about  five  hundred 
feet  in  the  air.  Below  that  air-line,  in  the  plains  of 
Meath  and  Leinster  and  Munster,  the  Normans  hope 
to  claim  everything.  Above  that  air-line,  in  the  moun- 
tains of  Leinster  and  Munster,  they  hope  to  keep  the 
outlawed  Irishmen.  Their  plan  is  to  hold  all  the  walled 
towns  on  the  coast — Carrickfergus,  Dublin,  Wexford, 
Waterford,  Cork,  and  Limerick — and  to  pepper  the 
plains  with  impregnable  stone  castles ;  then  go  on  brave 
excursions  into  Connacht,  up  to  Ulster,  to  complete 
the  symmetry  of  conquest. 

The  "wild  Irish,"  of  course,  are  to  stay  in  the  bogs 
and  the  hills,  watching  Piers  the  Plowman,  just  over 
from  England,  as  he  whistles  at  his  work  in  the  fruitful 
fields. 

If  the  Irish  were  "wild,"  this  was  calculated  to  make 

89 


The  Story  of  the  Irish  Nation 

them  more  wild.  The  prompt  outcome  was  a  series  of 
unfortunate  incidents.  A  young  Irishman  with  an  ax 
in  his  hand  stood  by  the  governor  de  Lacy  when  de  Lacy 
stooped  to  mark  out  the  spot  for  a  new  castle,  and  it 
was  too  much  for  the  youth — one  blow  was  enough. 
The  Normans  then  tried  to  outlaw  the  ax. 

On  Easter  Monday,  1209,  the  citizens  of  Dublin, 
five  hundred  in  number,  all  loyal  and  not  long  imported 
from  Bristol,  thought  they  'd  have  a  picnic  out  in  the 
enemy  country,  two  miles  out.  It  was  too  much  for 
the  O'Byrnes.  Before  the  benefits  of  Norman  civiliza- 
tion they  had  held  that  territory.  Now  they  lived  with 
the  goshawks  and  the  crows.  The  O'Byrnes  massacred 
the  picnic-party. 

It  began  to  be  clear  that  there  might  be  a  certain 
amount  of  ill-feeling  generated  by  the  conquest.  Prince 
John  came  over,  and  the  Irish  chiefs  were  asked  to  a 
fresh  party  in  Dublin.  They  came,  and  many  young 
Normans  with  Prince  John.  Being  witty  and  well- 
bred,  they  pulled  the  chieftains'  long  hair  and  their 
cloaks,  and  they  tried  to  trip  them.  The  Irish,  being 
unaccustomed  to  Norman  civilization,  went  home  feel- 
ing that  the  bond  between  the  French  and  Gaelic-speak- 
ing peoples  was  not  yet  secure. 

90 


Norman  Invasion  to  Henry  VIII 


It  is  idle  to  follow  the  process,  especially  through  the 
mists  of  intervening  hypocrisy.  The  Irish  were  "bar- 
barians,'* yet  de  Clare  had  married  Eva  MacMurrough 
and  de  Lacy  married  Rose  O*Conor  and  de  Burgh  mar- 
ried the  daughter  of  de  Lacy.  In  the  fighting  the 
Irish  steadily  improved.  But  a  profound  rottenness 
crept  into  their  life.  Here  were  the  Normans  with  a 
feudal  parliament  at  Dublin  but  the  country  was 
too  upset,  too  dangerous,  for  them  to  attend.  And 
here  were  the  Irish  without  any  chance  to  work  out 
their  own  central  government.  The  effect  on  both 
groups  was  precisely  the  same  ;  they  split  into  separate 
units  which  sought  combinations  of  any  and  every  kind 
for  profit.  What  made  it  indescribably  bad,  from  the 
Irish  point  of  view,  was  the  double  choice  that  con- 
fronted every  Irish  chief;  when  it  suited  his  interests 
he  could  elect  to  act  feudally  and  favor  his  elder  son, 
and  when  it  suited  him  he  could  favor  the  tanist  or 
second-chief  chosen  by  his  kinsmen.  The  temptation 
to  play  both  games  ripped  Irish  tribal  integrity  to 
pieces.  The  O'Neills,  the  O'Donnells,  the  O'Briens, 
especially  the  O'Conors,  engaged  in  the  fiercest  and 

91 


The  Story  of  the  Irish  Nation 

most  complicated  feuds.  There  were  murders,  battles, 
violations  of  sanctuary,  and  cold-blooded  massacres. 
The  Normans  were  not  one  atom  different.  De  Berm- 
ingham  who  beat  Bruce  in  1315  was  killed  by  two 
hundred  English  tenants  in  1329.  Edmund  and  Ulick 
Burke  stole  a  march  on  their  girl  cousin,  became  Irish 
chiefs,  took  Irish  names  (macWilliam),  and  divided 
her  estates.  The  Desmonds,  the  Geraldines,  the  de 
Lacys,  the  Butlers,  the  Berminghams  emulated  the 
O'Carrolls,  O'Dempseys,  O'Reillys,  O'Kellys,  O'Byrnes, 
O'Tooles,  macMurroughs,  macMahons,  in  the  blood- 
thirsty ferocity  and  political  meaninglessness  of  their 
quarrels.  The  moral  level  of  this  activity  was  high 
as  regards  courage  but  low  as  regards  purpose.  In 
most  of  it  one  searches  in  vain  for  any  trace  of  what 
we  now  call  public  spirit. 


In  the  thirteenth  century  there  was  one  brave  effort 
to  do  the  work  of  Ireland.  O'Brien  of  Thomond  saw 
that  a  combination  with  the  North  could  alone  help  Ire- 
land. Rising  above  his  own  claims  to  the  kingship,  he 
traveled  the  Erne  in  1258  with  his  principal  kinsmen 
and  sub-chiefs,  and  there  he  and  Hugh  O'Conor  agreed 
on  naming  Brian  O'Neill  king  of  Ireland.  In  1260 

92 


Norman  Invasion  to  Henry  VIII 

O'Neill  made  war  but  was  defeated  and  slain  by  the 
Earl  of  Salisbury  at  Downpatrick.  The  will  of  Ire- 
land, however,  was  at  work.  In  1263  an  approach  was 
made  to  Hakon  of  Norway,  to  offer  him  the  kingship. 
From  then  till  1315,  with  men  from  the  Hebrides  land- 
ing to  fight  by  the  side  of  the  Gael,  the  Irish  warred 
with  the  Norman  through  Ulster,  Meath,  and  Con- 
nacht.  By  that  time  Robert  Bruce  had  fought  Ban- 
nockburn.  Himself  declining  the  sovereignty  of  Ire- 
land, his  brother  Edward  accepted  the  crown  and 
landed  in  Antrim  with  6000  Scots.  In  1317,  the  year 
Robert  Bruce  came  to  fight  to  free  Ireland,  Brian 
O'Neill's  son  wrote  a  spirited  letter  denouncing  the 
invasion  to  Pope  John  XXII.  But  where  the  pope 
had  deferred  to  the  victor  of  Bannockburn  he  reproved 
and  threatened  the  Irish.  In  1317  the  friar  preachers 
and  mendicants  were  ordered  by  papal  mandate  "to 
desist  from  stirring  up  the  people  of  Ireland  to  resist 
the  king's  authority." 

Edward  Bruce  failed.  At  first  he  swept  the  country, 
but  his  second  year  was  wasted.  At  Athenry  his  ally 
O'Conor  was  slain  with  8000  men.  He  himself  won 
every  battle  except  his  last.  He  defeated  30,000  at 
Athy  and  15,000  at  Kells.  Besieging  Dublin  unsuc- 
cessfully and  too  late,  however,  he  stood  in  the  third 

93 


The  Story  of  the  Irish  Nation 

year  against  a  huge  combined  army,  and,  at  Faughart, 
near  Dundalk  (where  he  had  been  crowned),  he  lost 
his  life  and  Ireland. 

These  campaigns  drained  Ireland.  Their  effect  was 
recorded  in  bitter  reproaches  to  the  dead  Bruce,  who 
had  left  a  desolation,  famine,  and  pestilence  that  was 
soon  deepened  by  the  Black  Death.  Friar  John  Clyn 
of  the  Kilkenny  Franciscans  says  in  1348  that  "pesti- 
lence deprived  of  human  inhabitants  villages  and  cities, 
and  castles  and  towns,  so  that  there  was  scarcely  found 
a  man  to  dwell  therein."  But  it  was  the  Normans  and 
English  more  than  the  Irish  who  suffered.  The  great 
policy  by  which  the  mysteries  or  guilds  were  made  ex- 
clusively English  and  by  which  the  towns  were  planted 
"to  treat  with  the  Irish  enemy  and  reform  them,  also 
to  make  war  on  them,"  could  not  stand  the  depletions 
of  the  plague. 


The  dykes  of  the  colonists  began  to  give  way  before 
the  Irish  race  and  the  Irish  language,  and  for  two  cen- 
turies to  follow  there  was  an  increasing  Irish  resur- 
gence, up  to  the  rampart  of  the  Pale.  Mrs.  Alice  Stop- 
ford  Green  has  shown  in  scrupulous  detail  the  part 
that  Ireland  took  in  medieval  commerce  and  industry. 

94 


Norman  Invasion  to  Henry  VIII 

She  has  listed  the  names  of  Irishmen  who  went  to  Ox- 
ford, until  the  Pale  decreed  that  "no  Irishman  adher- 
ing to  the  enemies  shall  be  suffered  henceforth  to  pass 
over  the  sea,  by  color  of  going  to  the  schools  of  Ox- 
ford, Cambridge,  or  elsewhere."  Already  Irishmen 
were  "on  the  run."  But  this  did  not  prevent  their 
taking  a  share  of  the  markets  that  were  opening  all 
over  Europe.  In  "The  Making  of  Ireland  and  its 
Undoing,  1200-1600,"  Mrs.  Green  has  given  the  sur- 
prising evidences  of  Irish  commerce,  from  the  great  oak 
beams  that  went  to  support  the  roof  of  Westminster 
Hall  in  1200  to  the  oaks  that  went  to  the  Dutch  Stadt- 
haus  at  Amsterdam  in  1700.  Ireland  traded  with 
England,  France,  Spain,  Holland,  Flanders,  Florence, 
Naples,  Genoa.  Out  from  Ireland  were  sent  fine 
leather,  Irish  cloaks,  cloth  and  linen,  gloves,  baskets, 
shoes,  hemp  and  flax,  cheese,  butter  and  honey.  Em- 
broidered silk,  fine  serge,  ware  of  Irish  and  Spanish 
iron — these  went  with  salmon  and  herring,  with  corn, 
with  meat  and  wool.  Gold  came  in,  "with  coal  and 
fruit  and  wine,  carpets,  broadcloths  and  kerseys, 
velvet  and  silk,  satin  and  cloth  of  gold  and  em- 
broideries." And  small  Irish  ships  manned  by  Irishmen 
thronged  Galway,  Limerick,  Cork,  Waterford,  Wex- 
ford,  Dublin,  and  Drogheda.  Ardglass,  Trim,  Youg- 

95 


The  Story  of  the  Irish  Nation 

hal,  and  Kinsale  were  also  ports,  with  Ross  and  Kil- 
kenny as  trading  towns. 

To  keep  the  Irish  out  of  Irish  towns  was  the  first 
rule  of  what  now  begins  to  be  English  imperial  policy. 
"No  Irishman  nor  any  man  with  a  beard  above  his 
mouth  was  to  be  lodged  within  Dublin  walls,  nor  his 
horse  nor  his  horse-boy."  Such  severe  prohibitions, 
however,  were  not  operative  in  a  country  where  the 
Irish  were  like  the  moisture  in  the  air.  Who  were  to  be 
"priests,  doctors,  clerks,  nurses,  messengers,  harpers, 
porters,  millers,  bakers,  shoemakers,  butchers"?  The 
decline  of  Anglo-Norman  fortunes  drew  into  Dublin 
"O'Byrnes,  O'Tooles,  Ryans,  O'Heyns,  Hanlons,  Der- 
mots,  Kavanaghs,  Connors,  Coynes,  Flanagans,  Con- 
nells."  It  was  impossible  to  hold  "the  rallying  city 
for  men  of  the  'better  race.' ' 

But  while  the  unfree  classes  in  Ireland  had  no  share 
in  the  class  revolts  of  John  Ball  and  Wat  Tyler,  there 
was  a  temporary  promise  of  relief  from  invasion.  "Our 
Irish  dominions,"  cried  King  Edward  in  1361,  "have 
been  reduced  to  such  utter  devastation,  ruin,  and  mis- 
ery that  they  may  be  totally  lost  if  our  subjects  there 
are  not  immediately  succored."  This  was  the  period 
of  the  Statute  of  Kilkenny — which,  by  the  way,  was 
written  in  French,  still  the  language  of  the  aristocracy 

96 


Norman  Invasion  to  Henry  VIII 

and  the  law.  The  case  was  so  bad  that  the  crown  had 
to  make  a  demonstration.  It  made  a  huge  one.  In 
1394  Richard  II  arrived  (at  Waterford,  as  usual)  with 
an  army  of  34,000  to  engraft  more  virtue  on  the 
wild  and  barbarous  Irish. 

A  different  macMurrough  from  Dermot  the  For- 
eigner was  now  king  of  Leinster.  From  1377  to  1417 
Art  macMurrough  was  the  goad  of  the  English.  Work- 
ing with  the  O'Byrnes.  O'Tooles,  and  O'Nolans,  he 
showed  the  offense-power  of  the  "mounteine  enemie." 
He  mauled  Richard's  troops  on  the  way  to  Dublin, 
having  blocked  their  passage  by  the  east.  The  ruse 
which  de  Bermingham  had  worked  with  the  Offaly 
family  in  1305,  when  twenty-nine  nobles  were  murdered 
at  a  banquet  in  his  castle,  was  later  tried  in  Dublin 
Castle  on  macMurrough.  But  as  armed  men  stealthily 
surrounded  that  feasting-place  of  death,  the  unsuspect- 
ing macMurrough  caught  his  battle-song  played  in 
earnest  by  a  watchful  harper,  his  only  attendant ;  "he 
made  his  escape  despite  of  them,  by  the  strength  of  his 
hand  and  bravery,  and  they  were  not  able  to  subdue 
him."  This  was  the  end  of  the  knighthood  that  Richard 
had  given  to  macMurrough  as  well  as  O'Conor,  O'Brien, 
and  O'Neill. 

At  Kells,  in  1398,  King  Richard's  deputy,  Mortimer, 

97 


The  Story  of  the  Irish  Nation 

was  defeated  and  slain.  In  revenge  thereof  Richard 
returned  with  20,000  men  in  1399.  Only  by  luck  did 
he  arrive  at  Dublin  with  his  force  partly  intact.  The 
(^Byrnes  were  beaten  at  Bray,  with  heavy  losses,  in 
the  following  year.  But  Art  raacMurrough  persisted. 
He  dominated  Leinster.  Wexford,  Carlow,  Kildare, 
he  scavenged  of  his  enemy,  and  held  his  own  till  he 
died  at  sixty,  1417. 


This  was  an  age,  however,  in  which  the  primitive 
and  desperate  process  of  armed  raids  and  sallies  was 
not  enough  to  liberate  Ireland.  To  carve  Dublin  Castle 
out  of  Ireland's  side  was  necessary ;  but  macMurrough 
opened  that  wound  without  extracting  the  spear-head. 
Meanwhile  great  developments  were  taking  place  on 
the  Continent  and  even  in  England.  The  names  of 
Petrarch  and  Boccaccio  spring  to  mind  at  this  period ; 
and  if  French  feudalism  was  sprawling  in  the  mud  of 
Agincourt  like  a  crustacean  on  its  back,  with  Henry 
V's  murderers  finishing  it,  and  if  John  Huss  was  burned 
alive  in  1415  as  Joan  of  Arc  was  burned  alive  in  1430, 
the  spring  of  Europe  was  in  blossom.  Life  surged  in 
the  medieval  towns  and  hope  in  the  rediscovery  of  work- 
manship. France  devised  a  military  system  that  ended 

98 


Norman  Invasion  to  Henry  Fill 

"chivalry"  and  prepared  the  state  for  the  terrible  uses 
of  gunpowder.  The  Hundred  Years'  War  concluded 
in  1453,  the  English  retreating  from  France  to  enter 
on  the  miserable  wrangle  of  the  Wars  of  the  Roses. 
It  was,  on  the  Continent,  the  beginning  of  the  Renais- 
sance, a  movement  that  released  the  energies  of  man 
and  allowed  him  to  satisfy  his  most  varied  and  colored 
desires.  Copernicus,  Cabot,  and  Columbus  were  names 
on  the  horizon.  A  race  of  subject  human  beings, 
mute  and  grimy,  still  hung  on  the  side-lines  of  this 
vivid  human  procession  toward  knowledge  and  culture; 
only  the  center  of  the  social  stream  flowed  gleamingly 
in  the  sun.  But  everywhere  the  break-up  of  feudalism 
was  the  end  of  an  enslavement  to  the  battle-ax.  The 
New  Learning  was  almost  within  man's  grasp,  to  lift 
him  out  of  barbarism  into  a  reason  which  meant  that 
life  was  to  be  valued,  glorified,  sweetened,  and  refined. 
The  church,  so  far  the  custodian  of  the  higher  values, 
was  enough  in  league  with  feudalism  to  become  the 
object  of  contention  and  revision.  Men  who  had  new 
values,  men  who  craved  emancipation,  tried  their 
strength  against  Rome.  In  some  cases  tolerance  and 
reason  were  most  in  mind,  and  the  rights  of  man;  in 
other  cases  a  mere  change  of  masters  and  formulae. 
But  in  any  case  the  world  turned  on  a  new  axis. 

99 


The  Story  of  the  Irish  Nation 

8 

For  this  renaissance  (a  Continental  word)  England 
was  not  yet  ready;  and  Ireland,  dragging  in.  the 
troubled  wake  of  England,  was  permitted  no  natural 
evolution.  Poynings*  law,  passed  in  1394,  gives  the 
best  indication  of  the  tiny  extent  to  which  "constitu- 
tional liberties"  had  penetrated  to  Ireland.  So  un- 
certain was  the  English  crown  of  its  feudal  barons  in 
Ireland  that  the  exclusively  Anglo-Norman  parliament 
of  Dublin  was  led  by  a  strong  deputy  into  agreeing  that 
no  bill  should  even  be  presented  in  Ireland  until  it  had 
been  submitted  for  approval  to  the  English  crown. 
This  was  intended  to  offset  and  hold  down  the  Gerald- 
ines.  The  Geraldines  (FitzGeralds  of  Kildare  and 
Munster)  had  by  now  begun  to  show  their  sea-change, 
after  four  generations  of  Ireland.  They  were  no  longer 
Normans  but  Norman-Irish,  speaking  French,  English, 
Irish,  and  Latin,  and  bidding  fair  to  become  the  real 
lords  of  the  realm.  Set  against  the  prudent  Ormondes 
(Butlers  by  name  and  often  butlers  by  temperament) 
these  FitzGeralds  rose  on  their  manifold  compromise 
between  feudalism  and  the  Irish  land  system,  while 
the  Irish  chiefs  marked  time  and  collected  "black  rent." 

The  FitzGeralds  grew  in  strength  and  in  national 
100 


Norman  Invasion  to  Henry  VIII 

favor  until,  with  skill  and  luck,  they  came  within  sight 
of  dominating  Ireland.  The  degree  to  which  the  union 
of  Irish  and  Anglo-Irish  had  proceeded  may  be  guessed 
from  these  alliances:  "A  daughter  of  the  seventh  Earl 
of  Kildare  married  Henry  O'Neill,  Prince  of  Tyrowen. 
Of  the  daughters  of  the  eighth  earl,  Alice  was  married 
to  her  first  cousin,  Con  O'Neill,  Eleanor  to  MacCarthy 
Reagh  and  afterwards  to  Manus  O'Donnell,  Margaret 
to  the  eighth  Earl  of  Ormond,  and  Eustacia  to  Mac- 
William  Uachter.  Mary,  daughter  of  the  ninth  earl, 
was  married  to  Brian  O'Conor,  chief  of  Offaly,  and  her 
sister  Ellen  to  Fergananim  O'Carroll  of  Ely."  Here 
was  a  mighty  union  of  Irish  and  Anglo-Irish  against 
the  crown,  after  four  hundred  years  of  conquest.  But 
statecraft  set  a  trap,  and  youth  fell  into  it.  The 
downfall  of  the  Geraldines  was  black  as  the  pit. 


To  English  history  belongs  the  Geraldines'  espousal 
of  the  Yorkish  pretenders,  and  the  picture  of  Ormonde's 
faction  and  the  Geraldines  brawling  in  St.  Patrick's 
Cathedral.  It  is  enough  to  know  that  Ormonde  "put 
a  great  stay"  on  Geraldine  and  Geraldine  on  Ormonde. 

But  with  Garrett  Mor  (Gerald),  the  Great  Earl  of 
Kildare,  there  comes  a  vigorous  and  defiant  personality. 

101 


The  Story  of  the  Irish  Nation 

He  died  in  1513,  "a  mighty  made  man,  full  of  honor 
and  courage."  He  was  the  earl  of  whom  it  was  said, 
"All  Ireland  cannot  rule  this  man."  "Then,"  said 
Henry  VII,  "this  man  shall  rule  all  Ireland!"  To 
succeed  him  came  Garrett  Oge  (Gerald  the  Younger), 
again  the  governor  of  Ireland.  Garrett  was  a  man 
who  saw  aid  for  Ireland  in  Spain  and  France.  At  a 
time  when  the  Pale  was  narrowed  to  a  swathe  of  Louth, 
Meath,  Kildare,  and  Dublin,  he  was  a  power  in  the  land. 
At  Maynooth,  his  castle,  there  was  artillery  that  should 
have  been  in  Dublin.  In  spite  of  his  culture  (he  had 
a  library,  large  for  the  time,  in  which  twenty  Irish 
books  are  recorded,  twenty-two  English,  thirty-four 
Latin,  and  thirty-six  French),  he  sneered  like  a  fron- 
tiersman in  his  conflict  with  the  sumptuous  Wolsey. 
"I  would  you  and  I  had  exchanged  kingdoms  but  for 
one  month.  I  could  trust  to  gather  up  more  crumbs  in 
that  space  than  twice  the  revenues  of  my  poor  earldom. 
I  sleep  in  a  cabin  when  you  lie  soft  in  your  bed  of 
down.  I  serve  under  the  cope  of  heaven,  when  you 
are  served  under  a  canopy,  I  drink  water  out  of  a  skull, 
when  you  drink  out  of  golden  cups." 

Lord  deputy  by  his  very  courage,  he  was  called  to 
London  in  1534  to  answer  to  Henry  VIII  for  treason, 

102 


Norman  Invasion  to  Henry  VIII 

and  this  time  he  was  clamped  in  the  Tower.  While  he 
was  there  word  was  sent  back  to  Ireland  that  Henry  had 
executed  him.  The  report  traveled  to  his  son,  Silken 
Thomas,  a  handsome  youth  left  as  deputy  by  his 
father:  his  gorgeous  trappings  gave  him  his  name. 

The  young  man  wanted  no  more  of  Tudor  fealty. 
He  rode  through  Dublin  with  his  harper  and  a  troop  of 
horse.  On  the  north  of  the  Liffey  he  made  his  way 
to  St.  Mary's  Abbey  where  the  king's  council  was  sit- 
ting. There  he  flung  his  sword  of  state  among  them. 

"Now  I  have  need  of  my  own  sword,"  he  said,  "I  am 
none  of  Henry's  deputy.  I  am  his  foe." 

His  elders  trembled  for  him.  "I  will  not  hold  him  for 
my  king,"  the  youth  cried.  "If  it  be  my  hap  to  mis- 
carry .  .  .  catch  that  catch  may.  I  will  take  the 
market  as  it  riseth." 

Galloping  off  after  this  defiance,  Silken  Thomas 
began  a  campaign  which  enlisted  the  O'Tooles,  mac- 
Murroughs,  O'Conors,  O'Moores,  O'Briens,  O'Carrolls, 
O'Neills.  He  had  enough  success  to  enable  him  to 
control  the  Pale  and  to  take  the  Castle.  But  there 
was  no  heart  in  the  rising,  and  much  dissension  The 
archbishop  of  Dublin  being  murdered  by  his  followers, 
Lord  Thomas  was  promptly  condemned  by  the  church; 

103 


The  Story  of  the  Irish  Nation 

and   Henry   VIII   sent   over   Skeffington   the   Gunner. 

With  the  aid  of  artillery,  Skeffington  captured  May- 
nooth ;  thereupon  he  executed  the  garrison.  One  after 
another  the  six  Geraldine  fortresses  were  assaulted  and 
taken.  A  promise  of  pardon  was  indubitably  given  to 
Lord  Thomas  (now  Earl  of  Kildare  since  his  father 
had  died  in  the  Tower).  He  and  his  five  uncles  were 
brought  prisoners  to  London.  There  they  were  held 
for  more  than  a  year,  in  mean  neglect  and  misery,  the 
gallant  youth  now  barefoot  and  in  rags.  The  delay 
was  designed  to  cool  off  feeling.  In  1537  the  six 
Geraldines  were  "drawne,  hanged,  and  quartered  at 
Tiburne,"  and  their  heads  set  on  six  spikes  on  London 
Bridge. 

Antagonists  though  they  were,  the  ruin  of  the  Ger- 
aldines was  terrible  enough  to  win  the  tears  of  Ormonde. 
No  Anglo-Irish  family  was  to  take  their  place,  or  to 
weld  Ireland  under  an  outside  leader.  But  a  young 
boy,  the  last  of  the  Geraldines,  was  hurried  by  his 
aunt  from  the  reach  of  the  English.  She  brought  him 
safely  to  Donegal.  Then,  in  the  saffron  shirt  of  a 
peasant,  he  was  shipped  to  France.  The  English 
Government  learned  he  was  in  Paris  and  demanded  him. 
Again  he  escaped,  eventually  to  Rome,  to  appear  in 
middle  age  on  the  Irish  scene. 

104 


Norman  Invasion  to  Henry  VIII 

10 

It  has  spirit,  this  recovery  from  the  Norman  in- 
vasion, but  one  thinks  of  that  Irish  priest,  Shemus 
Cartan,  in  his  exile  in  France,  writing  these  manly  lines 
in  Gaelic,  translated  by  Lady  Gregory : 

Let  us  put  down  the  sum  of  our  sins; 
Oppression  of  the  poor,  thieving,  robbery, 
Great  vows  held  in  light  esteem; 
Giving  our  soul  to  the  man  that  is  the  worst; 
The  strength  of  our  pride  was  greater  than  our  life, 
The  strength  of  our  debts  was  more  than  we  could  pay. 

It  was  with  treachery  Ireland  was  lost, 
And  the  ill-will  of  men  one  to  another. 
There  was  no  judge  that  would  give  a  hearing 
To  the  oppressed  people  whose  life  was  under  hardship. 
Outcasts  and  widows  crying  aloud 
Without  right  judgment  to  be  had  or  punishment. 

We  were  never  agreed  together, 
But  as  one  ox  bound  and  one  free  from  the  yoke; 
No  right  humility  to  be  found. 
All  trying  for  the  headship  of  Ireland 
At  the  time  when  her  enemies  were  doing  their  work. 
No  settlement  to  be  made  of  any  quarrel, 

The  share  of  the  wheat-ear  for  the  man  that  was  the  strongest; 
It  is  long  that  this  has  been  the  hurt  of  Ireland; 
It  is  thus  that  the  battle  ended  with  the  Gael. 

The  battle  had  not  "ended  with  the  Gael."  It  had 
only  begun.  But  the  age  of  the  swash-buckler  was 
over.  Now  came  a  period  in  which  feudalism  gave 
place  to  absolute  monarchy.  Ireland  had  to  meet  the 
policy  of  conquest  which  was  dictated  by  Tudor  fears, 
Stuart  cowardice,  and  the  godly  brutality  of  Puritan- 
ism. 

105 


CHAPTER  V 

THE  CONQUEST 


r  1 1  HE  Irish  question  was  now  three  hundred  and  fifty 
JL  years  old.  Without  the  existence  or  aid  of  a 
single  Ulster  Presbyterian  or  a  single  Southern  Prot- 
estant, without  the  existence  of  one  "Scotch-Irish- 
man," the  problem  of  an  Irish  nation  was  full  grown 
in  the  reign  of  Henry  VIII.  With  him,  however,  and 
with  his  comprehensive  policy,  commences  the  Ireland 
that  we  know  to-day.  Modern  landlordism  sprang 
from  his  polity.  So  did  the  religious  question.  So  did 
the  administration  of  Ireland  by  non-Irishmen  and 
anti-Irishmen.  So  did  modern  Irish  patriotism. 

In  his  reign,  on  the  surface  a  benign  one,  originated 
the  most  serious  of  all  political  evils ;  the  implantation 
of  a  national  problem  which  divides  the  will  and  yet 
cannot  be  solved  without  unity  of  will.  That  problem 
was  first  implanted  by  peaceful  methods,  in  the  belief 
that  conquest  would  be  unnecessary.  But  when  these 

106 


The  Conquest 

methods  failed,  because  too  arbitrary,  England  went 
to  work  with  sword,  with  fire,  with  famine,  with  mas- 
sacre, torture,  poison,  exile,  and  execution.  Her  plan 
was  weighed  and  deliberate.  It  had  the  aim  of  legality 
in  the  beginning,  but  later  it  appeared  without  disguise 
in  its  desire  for  profit  and  dominance,  working  on  the 
theory  of  race-superiority  to  the  ends  that  England's 
success  seemed  to  demand.  "Christ  did  not  die  for  the 
Irish."  The  resulting  shame  and  ruin  were  afterwards 
generously  ascribed  by  patriotic  Englishmen  to  "blun- 
ders" and  "mistakes."  But  the  burning  of  state  papers 
had  not  then  become  an  accomplishment  of  the  English 
Government.  And  from  state  papers  the  history  of 
English  policy  is  to  be  fully  derived. 


In  1521  the  Duke  of  Norfolk  (then  Earl  of  Surrey) 
unfolded  his  plan  about  Ireland. 

"The  land  shall  never  be  brought  to  good  order 
and  subjection  but  only  by  conquest,  which  is,  at  your 
Grace's  pleasure,  to  be  brought  to  pass  in  two 
ways  ..." 

Henry  VIII  did  not  see  eye  to  eye  with  Surrey.  He 
weighed  the  policy  of  conquest,  especially  after  the 
crushing  of  the  Geraldines,  but  he  had  no  spare  money. 

107 


The  Story  of  the  Irish  Nation 

He  had  his  complications  with  France  and  Spain,  and 
he  had  his  young  Reformation  to  nourish.  In  addition 
he  agreed  with  Machiavelli  that  it  was  better  to  win  a 
people's  confidence  than  to  depend  on  fortresses.  And 
the  fiasco  of  the  Geraldine  rebellion  gave  him  his  chance. 

First  he  planned  to  launch  Reformation  in  Ireland. 
Since  the  Normans,  there  had,  of  course,  been  no  "re- 
ligious" question  except  the  question  of  having  pro- 
English  bishops.  The  Gaels  from  Scotland  and  the 
Hebrides,  "piratical  marauders,"  were  now  firmly  set- 
tled in  Down  and  Antrim,  but  of  course  they  were 
Catholics.  The  English  in  the  walled  towns  were  tena- 
ciously Catholic.  The  Anglo-Irish  lords,  who  traced 
their  moral  right  to  be  in  Ireland  to  a  papal  bull,  were 
ardent  in  their  faith.  The  higher  clergy,  appointed 
from  England  and  sanctioned  by  Rome,  had  no  theo- 
logical difficulties. 

Perhaps  the  only  people  questioned  as  good  Catho- 
lics were  the  beggar  friars  who  went  amongst  the 
country  people  and  kept  God  and  education  alive  in 
the  windowless  hovels.  Now  these  friars,  and  the  occu- 
pants of  five  hundred  monasteries,  were  to  be  sup- 
pressed. Neither  Irish  nor  Ango-Irish  welcomed 
this  disorganization.  The  monasteries,  for  one  thing, 
served  as  inns.  The  English  who  imported  the  Refor- 

108 


The  Conquest 

mation  found  themselves  intensely  unpopular  for  rea- 
sons of  heart,  head,  and  belly.  But  the  new  bishops 
and  their  hangmen  peddled  their  reform  through  the 
country,  amid  "angers,  slanders,  conspiracies,  and,  in 
the  end,  the  slaughter  of  men." 


3 

Yet  this  transfer  of  the  church  and  the  schools  went 
hand  in  hand  with  a  policy  of  political  conciliation. 

Irishmen  were  not  citizens.  They  stood  outside  the 
Pale,  the  "little  place,"  and  consequently  outside  Eng- 
lish law.  "The  mere  Irish  were  not  only  accounted 
aliens  but  enemies,  and  altogether  out  of  the  protec- 
tion of  the  law,  so  as  it  was  no  capital  offense  to  kill 
them  .  .  .  every  Englishman  might  oppress,  spoil  and 
kill  them  without  controlment."  (Sir  John  Davies.) 
Thus  conciliation  had  a  way  to  travel,  especially  as 
Lord  Leonard  Gray  was  about  to  be  executed  for  hav- 
ing practised  it.  But  statecraft  is  nimble. 

The  "five  bloods"  or  royal  septs  were  technically 
within  the  law.  But  they  had  helped  Lord  Thomas  in 
his  rebellion.  So  long  as  the  Government  planned  to 
exterminate  them,  they  would  not  dare  to  "come  in." 
But  the  Government  made  it  plain  that  it  wished  to 

109 


The  Story  of  the  Irish  Nation 


conciliate  them,  and  they  weakened.     They  were  worn 
out  and  bled  white.     Years  of  warfare  had  devastated 


Ireland 

under  Henry  "SET         ° 


IRISH     TERRITORIES 
UNSHADED 


the  country.    Scotland  and  France  had  delayed  to  help, 
as  they  always  did  delay,  and  the  new  deputy  led  them 

110 


The  Conquest 


man  by  man  to  the  door  of  negotiation.  By  promising 
peace  and  offering  territorial  titles  a  surprising  number 
of  fresh  "submissions"  was  collected — this  time  com- 
pelling the  chiefs  to  acknowledge  Henry  VIII  as  lord 
of  Ireland  and  to  deny  and  forsake  the  bishop  of  Rome. 
The  chiefs  cheerfully  and  unequivocally  "denied"  and 
"forsook."  Then,  in  1541,  they  came  to  Dublin,  ex- 
penses paid,  to  a  parliament.  McGillapatrick,  now 
the  Baron  of  Upper  Ossony,  was  there,  and  Mac- 
Murrough,  now  MacMurrough  Kavanagh,  and  an 
O'Neill  and  an  O'Moore  and  an  O'Brien  and  an  O'- 
Reilly. Kildare's  kinsman,  the  Earl  of  Desmond,  was 
there,  with  Barry,  Roche,  FitzMaurice,  and  others  of 
the  "degenerate"  English.  Lord  Ormonde,  adept  at 
languages,  translated  the  proceedings  for  the  Irish;  it 
seemed  that  the  master  wished  to  be  known  hereafter 
as  the  king  of  Ireland.  King  of  Ireland  they  made 
him  without  a  pang. 

This  was  not  all.  In  1542  Con  O'Neill  went  to 
London  to  be  created  an  earl!  One  of  the  de  Veres 
sponsored  him.  Next  year  Ulick  Burke  and  the 
O'Briens  followed.  The  king  gave  them  cash  and 
golden  chains,  each  worth  sixty  pound  odd.  The 
London  records  bulged  with  Irish  letters-patent  and 
sparkling  professions  of  allegiance. 

Ill 


The  Story  of  the  Irish  Nation 

4 

The  common  people  of  Ireland,  meanwhile,  were 
as  chattels.  When  the  O'Neill  "came  in"  it  was  by 
English  statecraft  that  his  people  must  come  in,  and 
when  he  forsook  the  bishop  of  Rome  it  was  assumed  that 
they  must  give  up  Rome.  What  happened,  of  course, 
was  nothing  so  automatic.  The  Irishmen  in  their  great 
blanket-cloaks  brooded  at  their  fires  over  the  journey 
of  O'Neill  to  London,  and  dark  eyes  flashed  out  of  the 
blackness,  and  dark  oaths,  at  the  conversion  of  chiefs 
into  landlords.  The  women  and  men,  foster-mothers 
and  god-fathers  to  the  chiefs,  now  meditated  on  being 
"vassals."  In  the  hills  the  herdsmen  made  note  of  the 
rumor.  The  bards  sang  of  it.  The  harpers  played 
it.  The  beggars  mused  on  it,  huddled  outside  the  closed 
monasteries.  Coming  with  the  new  "religion,"  the 
patriarchial  brehons  and  seannachies  had  food  for 
thought.  No  more,  it  was  said,  was  Gaelic  to  be  spoken, 
or  the  Irish  cloak  to  be  worn.  No  more  hurling.  No 
more  music.  Everything  and  everybody  was  now  to  be 
English,  except  the  bad  money.  The  news  flew  from 
dining-tables  to  the  kitchens,  from  kitchens  to  horse- 
boys and  dog-boys,  from  these  to  the  bogs  and  moors. 
And  firearms,  of  course,  were  to  be  illegal.  And  Irish- 


The  Conquest 

men  were  to  cut  their  hair  like  the  new  parsons,  and  to 
wear  legal  pants. 


Here,  at  last,  by  the  silken  thread,  "by  circumspect 
and  politic  ways,"  his  Grace  had  led  the  Gaelic  chiefs 
into  the  English  system.  "Proceed  politically,  pa- 
tiently and  secretly,"  Henry  VIII  had  told  Surrey, 
"that  the  Irish  lords  conceive  no  jealousy  or  suspicion 
that  they  shall  be  constrained  precisely  to  live  under 
our  laws  or  put  from  all  the  lands  by  them  now  de- 
tained." Now,  by  policy,  patience,  and  secrecy,  the 
Irish  had  been  landed.  Laws  that  were  not  their  laws, 
customs  that  were  not  theirs,  a  new  language,  a  new 
habit,  a  brand-new  religion,  were  all  condensed  in  the 
letters-patent  and  embraced  by  the  gold  chain.  And 
rebellion  meant — no  more  land. 

For  long  the  Irish  chieftains  had  played  whichever 
way  suited  them.  Now  they  were  hooked.  They  could 
take  over  monasteries  and  secretly  retain  the  monks. 
They  could  obstruct  sheriffs,  judges,  coroners,  baliffs, 
and  the  small  fry  of  the  English  system.  But  their 
own  people  knew  an  Irish  chief  when  they  saw  one; 
how  could  the  people  be  deceived?  Between  the  Irish 
folk  and  the  English  Government  these  chiefs  were 

113 


The  Story  of  the  Irish  Nation 

now  to   decide.     Their  irresponsible  days  were  over. 

For  the  lordlings  who  were  Catholic  on  Monday 
and  Protestant  on  Tuesday  there  was  no  problem  ex- 
cept the  serious  problem  of  remembering  the  days  of 
the  week.  For  O'Neills  and  O'Briens  and  O'Conors  and 
O'Donnells  there  was  this  choice  of  black  or  white. 

In  forcing  the  choice  there  was  a  sincere  English 
belief  that  as  landlords  the  chiefs  would  be  better  off. 
There  was,  besides,  another  sincere  English  belief,  the 
belief  that  the  Brito-Romo-Celto-Anglo-Saxo-Dano- 
Franco-Cambrian  ruling  class  was  a  ruling  class  very 
superior  in  its  way  of  life  to  the  barbarous  Gaelic. 
And  at  bottom  there  was  practical  politics.  The  Eng- 
lish people,  according  to  the  French  and  Spanish  naval 
peoples,  could  not  tell  a  tub  from  a  cat-boat,  and  had 
no  place  on  the  sea.  That  being  the  insolent  Con- 
tinental attitude,  and  the  O'Neills  and  O'Donnells  al- 
ready having  learned  to  solicit  France  and  Spain,  it 
was  simple  statecraft  that  the  Irish  should  be  mastered. 
The  only  way  in  which  they  could  securely  be  mastered, 
in  this  view,  was  by  being  nationally  made  over.  If  they 
could  be  made  into  Englishmen,  the  Tudor  statesmen 
felt,  much  might  be  done  with  them.  It  was  this  notion 
which  led  Henry  VIII  to  conciliate  the  chieftains  and 
offer  them  good  feudal  titles.  It  was  this  notion  which 

114 


The  Conquest 

led  England  to  devise  for  Ireland  (even  in  the  seven- 
teenth century)  a  system  of  state  education.  Plans 
for  exterminating  the  Irish  were  prepared,  for  crossing 
them  on  the  better  stock  by  shipping  in  English  women, 
for  deporting  them  in  large  numbers  as  slaves.  These 
plans,  most  of  them  attempted,  sprang  from  a  mixture 
of  swelled  head  and  cold  calculation. 

These  crude  plans  were  framed  in  the  days  of  Sir 
Thomas  More  and  Erasmus.  The  bird  of  imperial 
monarchy,  said  Erasmus,  is  the  eagle;  "a  bird  neither 
beautiful,  nor  musical,  nor  good  for  food,  but  murder- 
ous, greedy,  hateful  to  all,  the  curse  of  all,  and  with 
its  great  powers  of  doing  harm  only  surpassed  by  its 
desire  to  do  it."  Henry  VIII  applauded  the  immortal 
Erasmus.  But,  in  those  first  years  of  the  New  Learn- 
ing, gunpowder  as  well  as  the  printing-press  came  into 
the  hands  of  the  Englishmen.  Though  each  weapon 
was  double-edged,  printing  was  undoubtedly  the  great- 
est weapon  ever  forged  for  the  liberation  of  man,  and 
gunpowder  was  the  greatest  weapon  for  his  enslave- 
ment. Yet  while  the  printing-press  in  England  was 
to  make  public  opinion,  and  public  opinion  was  to 
revolutionize  parliament,  the  state  concluded  to  de- 
prive Ireland  of  the  printing-press  and  to  monopolize 
gunpowder.  And  so  drunk  were  Englishmen  with 

115 


The  Story  of  the  Irish  Nation 

power  and  conceit  that  the  very  idols  of  English  liberty 
could  not  reach  Ireland  fast  enough  to  carry  out  their 
policy  of  conquest. 


The  first  chapter  of  conquest  is  soon  opened.  After 
Edward  VI,  a  youth  who  died  of  tuberculosis,  came 
Mary  who  married  Philip.  Mary  was  "Bloody  Mary" 
in  England  because  she  persecuted  the  persecutors. 
In  Ireland  her  Catholicism  had  far  less  effect  than 
her  inheritance  of  Henry's  valueless  "submissions." 
For  already  the  Gaelic  system  had  revolted  against 
the  system  of  feudal  tenure.  The  people  of  each  sept 
had  their  candidate  and  hero.  There  were  people's 
Burkes  and  people's  O'Briens  to  battle  with  the  choice 
made  by  England.  In  Ulster,  protected  by  lake  and 
wood,  the  fight  was  most  unqualified.  Manus  O'Donnell 
had  astonished  the  lord  deputy  by  not  wearing  a 
loin-cloth ;  he  was  "an  elegant,  somewhat  foppish  gentle- 
man, magnificently  attired  in  crimson  velvet,  and  at- 
tended by  his  chaplain."  But  this  Queen's  O'Donnell, 
"the  lion  in  fight,"  had  a  battle  with  his  son,  and  Con 
O'Neill  had  to  duel  with  the  man  he  had  named  his  heir. 
The  "Redshanks"  or  Scottish  Gaels,  MacNeills  and 
MacDonnells,  used  the  favor  of  disorder  to  expel  the 

116 


The  Conquest 

MacQuillans  and  to  levy  "black  rent"  on  the  Eng- 
lish colonists.  The  English  Government,  on  its  side, 
gave  aid  and  comfort  to  whichever  Irishman  would 
kill  most  Irishmen.  Manwhile  Shane  the  Proud,  the 
Irish  O'Neill,  killed  the  English  O'Neill  in  battle  and 
resumed  the  headship  of  the  sept. 

Shane  O'Neill  was  a  rugged  specimen  of  his  race, 
"a  great,  aggressive  invader  of  the  territories  of 
others."  He  fought  against  Elizabeth  and  maneuvered 
with  her  for  the  return  of  his  power,  went  to  her  court 
and  there  intrigued  with  France  and  Spain,  attacked 
the  Scottish  Gaels  to  suit  her  deputies  and  yet  defied 
her  deputies.  They,  in  turn,  tried  to  poison  him.  As 
Froude  says  so  sympathetically,  "the  lord  deputy's  as- 
sassination plots  were  but  the  forlorn  resources  of  a 
man  who  felt  his  work  too  heavy  for  him." 

Fighting  the  O'Donnells,  Shane  was  in  the  end  forced 
to  flee  to  the  men  of  the  Hebrides.  An  English  officer 
called  Piers  was  with  them.  "At  a  given  signal,  the 
banqueting-room  was  filled  with  soldiers,  and  all  the 
Irish  were  slain.  O'Neill's  head  was  sent  to  Dublin, 
and  Piers  received  a  thousand  marks  from  the  Govern- 
ment as  a  reward  for  the  murder."  (Taylor.) 

With  the  approach  of  Elizabeth's  reign,  as  this  story 
shows,  came  the  finale  of  Henry's  compromise  with  the 

117 


The  Story  of  the  Irish  Nation 

chiefs,  and  the  beginning  of  thorough  conquest.  Al- 
ready the  legal  excuse  of  their  submissions  had  been 
used  by  Mary  against  the  Leinster  septs  of  Leix  and 
Offaly.  When  the  O'Conors  first  bared  their  teeth, 
as  the  result  of  a  dispute,  the  whole  population  was 
clean  expelled  from  their  lands,  which  now  became 
King's  County  and  Queen's  County.  Philip  graciously 
gave  his  name  to  Philipstown  and  Mary  to  Mary- 
borough. In  revenge  for  dispossession  the  rebellious 
(yMoores  and  O'Conors  ravaged  the  new  settlers.  It 
was  not  till  1577,  on  New  Year's  day,  that  the  policy 
of  conquest  dealt  effectively  with  these  rebels.  They 
were  invited  to  a  conference  at  Mullaghmast,  there- 
upon surrounded  and  massacred.  This  bit  of  frightful- 
ness  settled  one  main  group  of  Leinster  chiefs  for  ever. 
The  hideous  massacre  of  Rathlin  Island  of  1575  was 
part  of  another  clearance  in  Antrim.  But  these  were 
curtain-raisers.  The  big  first  act  in  conquest  was 
five  years  later,  in  Munster. 


Since  the  early  part  of  Elizabeth's  reign  had  a 
religious  motive,  it  is  necessary  to  diverge  for  a  minute. 
The  Reformation  in  its  turn  called  for  the  use  of  force, 
and  force  was  supplied  in  the  name  of  Christianity. 

118 


The  Conquest 

In  an  age  when  Irishmen  themselves  could  ill-treat 
one  another  as  Tadhg  the  bard  was  ill-treated, 
it  was  not  incredible  that  Dermot  O'Hurley,  Arch- 
bishop of  Cashel,  should  be  tortured.  "We  have  neither 
rack  nor  other  engine  of  torture  in  Dublin  Castle  to 
terrify  Dr.  Hurley,"  the  commissioners  complained. 
But  they  did  without  a  rack ;  they  oiled  his  feet,  encased 
them  in  metal  boots,  and  roasted  them  till  the  flesh  came 
away  with  the  boot.  Then,  after  a  delay  of  some  weeks, 
Dr.  Hurley  was  hanged.  The  finer  points  of  doctrine 
were  scarcely  considered  in  this  Reformation,  which 
was  in  essence  the  establishment  of  a  loyalist  political 
church.  There  were  time-servers  on  both  sides,  some 
of  the  Anglo-Irish  exceeding  the  New  English  in  their 
zeal  for  Protestantism.  But  the  people  in  the  towns, 
many  of  the  nobility,  and  virtually  all  of  the  people 
remained  Catholics.  And  the  "heretic"  clergy  now 
moved  through  Ireland,  hunted,  disguised,  perpetually 
"on  the  run." 

8 

Now  we  come  to  the  drastic  and  ferocious  conquest 
of  Munster.  It  must  first  be  said  that  the  policy  to  be 
described  hereafter  did  not  have  the  hearty  assent  of 
every  one  in  the  English  Government.  Some  balked  at 

119 


The  Story  of  the  Irish  Nation 

assassination,  some  at  massacre,  some  at  the  killing 
of  women.  Lord  Burghley,  the  great  statesman  of  his 
day,  said  that  "the  Flemings  had  not  such  cause  to 
rebel  against  the  oppressions  of  the  Spaniards  as  the 
Irish  against  the  tyranny  of  England."  But,  as  the 
English  historian  Froude  points  out,  the  gentlemen 
who  actually  had  Ireland  in  their  power  "had  been 
trained  in  the  French  wars,  in  the  privateer  fleets,  or 
on  the  coast  of  Africa,  and  the  lives  of  a  few  thousand 
savages  were  infinitely  unimportant  to  them."  Besides, 
the  Continental  powers  being  Catholic  and  Ireland 
being  Catholic,  it  was  assumed  that  the  conquest  could 
not  be  too  soon  or  too  savage. 

So,  when  the  FitzGeralds,  faced  by  confiscation  and 
beggary,  at  last  committed  themselves  to  a  rebellion  in 
Munster,  with  the  aid  of  two  thousand  Scots  in  the 
North,  with  the  aid  of  the  O'Byrnes  in  Leinster,  who 
won  a  signal  victory,  and  with  the  aid  of  the  Spanish 
from  across  the  sea,  the  Elizabethans  had  an  opportun- 
ity to  carry  out  their  frightfulness. 

At  Smerwick,  where  the  Spaniards  landed,  the  gallant 
Sir  Walter  Raleigh  appears  in  Irish  history.  "When 
the  [Spanish]  captain  had  yielded  himself,  and  the  fort 
appointed  to  be  surrendered,  Captain  Raleigh,  to- 

120 


The  Conquest 

gether  with  Captain  Macworth,  had  the  ward  of  that 
day,  entered  into  the  castle,  and  made  a  great  slaugh- 
ter, many  or  most  part  of  them  being  put  to  the 
sword."  The  bodies  of  those  unarmed  men  whom  Ral- 
eigh and  his  band  had  butchered,  six  hundred  in  all, 
were  stripped  and  laid  out  on  the  sand,  "  'as  gallant 
goodly  personages,'  said  Grey,  'as  ever  were  beheld.* ' 

The  state  papers  for  Ireland,  1580,  are  blunt. 
"The  ffortes  were  yielded,  all  the  Irishmen  and  women 
hanged,  and  four  hundred  and  upwardes  of  Italyans 
and  others  put  to  the  sworde  ...  A  ifrayer  and  others 
kept  in  store  to  be  executed  after  examination  had  of 
them  .  .  .  Next  day  was  executed  an  Englishman  who 
served  Dr.  Saunders,  one  Plunckett,  and  an  Irish  Priest 
theire  armes  and  legges  were  broken  and  hanged  upon 
a  gallows." 

But  Christianity  was  already  demanded  by  foreign 
policy.  "The  queen,"  said  Lord  Bacon,  "was  much 
displeased  at  the  slaughter." 

"The  queen,"  said  a  later  historian,  "expressed  the 
utmost  concern  and  displeasure  at  this  barbarous  ex- 
ecution." 

The  queen,  on  the  contrary,  expressed  herself  as 
pleased.  Her  letters,  "written  in  Roman  hand  by  her 


The  Story  of  the  Irish  Nation 

Majesty,"  found  the  enterprise  "greatly  to  our 
lyking."  She  thanked  Grey  for  "performing  this  so 
acceptable  service."  In  a  later  letter,  complaining 
only  of  the  cost  of  conquest,  she  renewed  her  thanks 
for  great  good  services,  "chiefly  in  the  late  exploit 
you  did  against  the  strangers  . .  .  Proceed  on  cheerfully 
to  do  your  best." 

From  the  mouths  of  Bingham,  Walter  Raleigh,  and 
others,  we  learn  how  the  fighting  proceeded.  In  Con- 
nacht  the  English  planned  a  land  settlement,  provoked 
a  rising,  and  slew  "fourteen  or  fifteen  hundred,  besides 
boys,  women,  churls  and  children,  which  could  not  be 
so  few,  as  so  many  more  and  upwards."  Sir  Peter 
Carew  "murdered  women  and  children,  and  babies  that 
had  scarcely  left  the  breast."  Malbie  and  Zouche 
report  killing  "men,  women,  and  children."  "There 
escaped  not  one,  neither  of  man,  woman,  nor  child." 

A  great  estate  fell  to  Walter  Raleigh,  in  reward  for 
his  part  in  this  "Mahometan  conquest."  Another 
estate,  with  two  abbeys,  fell  to  the  poet  Edmund  Spen- 
ser. He  served  as  a  secretary.  From  him,  who  agreed 
in  this  bloody  policy,  we  have  that  famous  passage  on 
the  scene  he  himself  beheld: 

Munster  "was  a  most  rich  and  plentiful  country, 
full  of  corn  and  cattle,  that  you  would  have  thought 


The  Conquest 

they  should  have  been  able  to  stand  long,  yet  ere  one 
year  and  a  half  they  were  brought  to  such  wretchedness 
as  that  any  stony  heart  would  have  rued  the  same.  Out 
of  every  corner  of  the  woods  and  glens  they  came 
creeping  forth  upon  their  hands,  for  their  legs  could 
not  bear  them;  they  looked  like  anatomies  of  death; 
they  spake  like  ghosts  crying  out  of  their  graves ;  they 
did  eat  the  dead  carrions,  happy  where  they  could  find 
them;  yea,  and  one  another  soon  after,  insomuch  as 
the  very  carcasses  they  spared  not  to  scrape  out  of 
their  graves ;  and  if  they  found  a  plot  of  watercresses 
or  shamrocks,  there  they  flocked  as  to  feast  for 
the  time,  yet  not  able  long  to  continue  there  withal; 
that  in  short  space  there  were  none  almost  left,  and  a 
most  populous  and  plentiful  country  suddenly  left 
void  of  man  and  beast." 


9 

This  was  the  first  act,  as  savage  as  the  most  savage 
Elizabethan  tragedy.  By  1583  Munster  was  a  waste, 
with  the  Earl  of  Desmond  whipped  and  hunted  to 
Kerry.  There,  in  a  hovel,  he  was  found  by  a  few 
straggling  soldiers.  "I  am  the  Earl  of  Desmond. 
Spare  my  life,"  he  pleaded.  Instead,  his  rescuer 

123 


The  Story  of  the  Irish  Nation 

dragged  the  elderly  man  out  and  killed  him,  for  the 
Government  reward. 

Now    followed    confiscation,    after   the   example   of 
Leix  and  Offaly.     About  250,000  acres  were  actually 


Hugh  O'Neill 


granted  by  the  crown  to  English  settlers,  as  Antrim 
had  already  been  granted  to  Essex.  An  enormous 
number  of  legal  disputes  were  originated,  especially 
concerning  the  MacCarthys ;  but  some  of  the  claimants 
were  rudely  disturbed  by  the  next  O'Neill  rebellion. 


The  Conquest 

10 

Hugh  O'Neill  succeeded  Shane  O'Neill.  He  was  a 
man  of  finer  metal.  Trained  at  the  Elizabethan  court, 
where  his  father  had  left  him,  he  realized  that  he  had  to 
deal  with  a  statecraft  which  was  not  nice  in  point  of 
honor.  He  himself  had  no  scruple  to  play  double  with 
Elizabeth.  He  was  undoubtedly  waiting  for  the  Ar- 
mada to  come  to  Ireland.  Up  to  then  and  after  he 
took  as  good  pains  as  any  Tudor  not  to  reveal  his 
hand.  He  lied,  he  dissembled,  he  bent  the  knee. 
Secretly  he  armed  and  trained  his  troops.  The  head 
of  the  O'Donnells,  Hugh  Roe  (Red  Hugh)  O'Donnell, 
he  could  not  reach.  When  a  boy  an  English  captain 
had  invited  O'Donnell  on  board  ship  to  buy  wine,  and 
had  kidnapped  and  delivered  him  to  Dublin  Castle. 
That  was  in  1587.  In  1591,  on  Christmas  night, 
young  O'Donnell  managed,  as  so  many  Irishmen  have 
managed,  to  escape  from  his  English  jail.  He  and  Art 
O'Neill,  who  was  in  prison  with  him,  dragged  their  way 
as  far  as  Glenmalure.  There,  in  the  snow  of  the  moun- 
tains, their  strength  gave  out;  they  were  numb  when 
found  by  a  servant  of  the  O'Byrnes.  The  O'Neill  boy 
was  already  dying.  Hugh  Roe  was  revived,  and,  al- 
though partially  crippled,  he  recovered. 

125 


The  Story  of  the  Irish  Nation 

Four  years  caged  in  Dublin  Castle  had  made  Hugh 
Roe  O'Donnell  ready  to  think  of  England  as  his  enemy. 
He  found  Hugh  O'Neill  of  the  same  judgment  and 
faith.  By  1595  the  two  Hughs  were  ready  for  a  war 
which  would  drive  out  the  English. 

In  that  war  O'Neill  and  O'Donnell  gathered  up  all 
the  matters  of  state  that  had  created  grievances  in 
Ireland  since  England  professed  to  reclaim  Ireland 
"from  barbarism  to  a  godly  government."  It  had 
previously  been  reaffirmed  that  Englishness  be  made 
obligatory,  that  "all  brehons,  carraghes,  bards,  rhym- 
ers, friars,  monks,  Jesuits,  pardoners,  nuns,  and  such 
like,"  be  executed  by  martial  law.  Now  O'Neill  and 
O'Donnell  demanded  complete  religious  liberty,  political 
independence  in  Tir  Owen  and  Tirconnell,  a  Catholic 
university,  freedom  to  go  overseas  for  learning,  and  no 
Englishmen  as  churchmen. 

"Ewtopia,"  wrote  Cecil  on  these  demands:  the  war 
proceeded. 

11 

Success  attended  O'Neill  and  O'Donnell.  They  de- 
stroyed an  English  army  at  Yellow  Ford,  with  Burke 
of  Sligo  and  MacDonnell  of  the  Isles  fighting  for  them. 
This  victory  aroused  the  whole  country.  Essex  arrived 

126 


to  lead  the  English.  There  were  still  some  Irish  without 
any  sense  of  unity.  Securing  the  help  of  O'Conor  Don, 
Richard  Burke  and  Maelmuire  MacSwiney,  the  English 
leader,  Clifford,  attempted  to  reach  the  North ;  he  suf- 
fered a  heavy  defeat  in  the  Battle  of  the  Curlew  Hills. 
A  prompt  truce  between  Essex  and  O'Neill  brought 
Essex  into  Elizabeth's  disfavor  and  removed  him  from 
Ireland.  A  cool  and  competent  deputy,  Mount  joy. 
took  Essex's  place  and  turned  the  tide. 

The  spirit  of  this  rebellion  was  deeper  than  Ulster 
alone.  Lewy  O'Clery  has  left  us  a  contemporary  life 
of  Hugh  Roe  O'Donnell  which  quotes  his  talk  to  his 
soldiers  before  the  Battle  of  the  Curlews :  "We,  though 
a  small  number,  are  on  the  side  of  right  as  it  seems 
to  us,  and  the  English  whose  number  is  large  are  on 
the  side  of  robbery,  in  order  to  rob  you  of  your  native 
land  and  your  means  of  living,  and  it  is  far  easier  for 
you  to  make  a  brave,  stout,  strong  fight  for  your  native 
land  and  your  lives  whilst  you  are  your  own  masters 
and  your  weapons  are  in  your  hands,  than  when  you 
are  put  in  prison  and  in  chains  after  being  despoiled 
of  your  weapons  ..." 

But  Spain  was  still  the  hope.  Both  O'Neill  and 
O'Donnell  knew  the  hopelessness  of  matching  a  coun- 
try of  less  than  a  million  inhabitants  against  a  country 

127 


The  Story  of  the  Irish  Nation 

of  six  million  or  so.  So  O'Donnell  had,  in  his  own 
good  Spanish,  implored  Spain  to  come  to  Ireland's 
aid.  Not  till  1601  did  3000  Spanish  arrive,  however; 
and  when  they  arrived  Mount  joy  and  Carew  had  12,000 
troops  to  blockade  them  in  Kinsale. 


A  lightning  march  from  Ulster  failed  to  unite  the 
Irish  with  the  Spanish.  A  day's  march  of  forty-two 
miles  across  frozen  country  enabled  O'Donnell  to  evade 
pursuit  but  when  O'Neill  and  O'Donnell  reached  Kin- 
sale,  impatience  (against  O'Neill's  advice),  led  them  to 
hasty  attack.  A  confused  retreat,  which  became  a 
panic,  brought  the  insurrection  to  an  inglorious  finish. 
Hugh  O'Donnell  escaped  to  Spain,  An  English  agent 
named  Blake  followed  and,  in  1602,  earned  his  fee  by 
poisoning  O'Donnell  in  his  castle  at  Simancas.  The 
evidence  of  this  assassination  was  revealed  in  letters 
that  have  since  come  to  light. 

This  was  a  catastrophe  to  Irish  arms  and  Irish 
courage.  Carew  was  merciless  to  O'Sullivan  Beare  at 
Dunboy.  The  rest  of  Munster  was  cowed.  Mount  joy 
in  the  North  roped  in  Rory  O'Donnell,  and  then  he 
opened  negotiations  with  O'Neill.  During  those  nego- 
tiations Elizabeth  lay  dead  in  England  but  Mount  joy 

128 


The  Conquest 

kept  this  news  from  The  O'Neill  until  he  was  once  again 
"Earl  of  Tyrone." 

This  is  the  Mount  joy  whose  family  name  is  immor- 
talized in  an  Irish  prison. 

Concurrently  with  the  war,  the  towns  which  Irish  and 
Anglo-Irish  had  built  up  were  handed  over  to  English 
adventurers.  From  1589  onward  the  towns  were  "occu- 
pied by  soldiers,  crushed  by  impositions,  and  forbidden 
to  trade."  Galway,  Limerick,  and  Waterford  were 
marked  for  isolation.  "With  every  generation,"  says 
Alice  Stopford  Green,  "the  struggle  was  renewed 
through  centuries  of  wilful  ruin,  till  of  the  flourishing 
markets  and  fair  towns  of  the  Irish  nothing  was  left 
but  a  starving  village,  a  dim  tradition,  a  crumbling 
wall,  or  the  name  of  a  silent  meadow,  while  the  ports 
lay  empty  and  rivers  and  lakes  deserted." 

13 

The  Earl  of  Tyrone  was  a  beaten  man.  He  and 
O'Donnell,  his  fellow-earl,  were  surrounded  by  Castle 
spies  and  English  agents.  Every  needy  scamp  "re- 
vealed" plots  to  Dublin  Castle.  In  1607,  their  patience 
worn  out,  came  the  Flight  of  the  Earls.  O'Neill  and 
O'Donnell  entered  Rome  like  princes,  after  a  dangerous 
and  terrible  journey.  Pope  Paul  V  "received  them  with 

129 


The  Story  of  the  Irish  Nation 

the  utmost  state  and  ceremony."  But  Ireland  was 
never  to  see  either  of  them  again.  Hugh  O'Neill,  the 
chief  soldier  and  coolest  leader  in  Ireland  since  the 
Norman  invasion,  lived  in  fruitless  and  melancholy 
exile  till  1616.  He  and  O'Donnell,  who  died  in  1608, 
are  buried  in  Rome.  It  was  not  for  a  generation  that 
another  of  this  manful  race,  Owen  Roe  O'Neill,  was  to 
attempt  again  to  free  Ireland  by  arms. 

In  the  meantime  Ireland  lay  prostrate.  The  plan 
of  conquest  could  not  be  perfected  until  every  potential 
rebel  was  actually  and  physically  uprooted,  women  as 
well  as  men.  But  in  the  reign  of  Elizabeth  the  Irish  had 
at  least  been  permanently  mown  away  in  four  Munster 
counties,  parts  of  Connacht,  Leinster,  Clare,  and  Tip- 
perary.  The  accompanying  military  treatment  had 
cleared  the  path  for  judges  and  lawyers.  Confisca- 
tions were  in  order,  and  the  implanting  of  Presby- 
terians in  Ulster. 


130 


CHAPTER  VI 

THE  CONFISCATIONS 


THE  war  after  the  war  now  began.  With  the 
abdication  of  the  Ulster  chiefs  and  with  the  im- 
possibility of  further  armed  resistance,  the  Stuarts  had 
a  comparatively  free  field.  What  they  designed  at 
first  was  to  put  Ireland  at  ease  in  Zion.  They  wanted 
to  make  Ireland  wholly  subordinate,  but  a  real  part 
of  the  English  system.  The  conquest  of  Ireland  had 
cost  Elizabeth  about  three  million  pounds — a  vast  sum 
in  1600.  The  Stuarts  saw  nothing  in  that.  They 
needed  revenue,  especially  from  Ireland,  and  they  sent 
Wentworth  to  make  Ireland  economically  sound,  for 
that  reason.  This  enlightened  selfishness  benefited 
Ireland.  It  is  true  that  Wentworth  hampered  the 
woolen  industry,  which  England  wanted  to  hog,  but  he 
went  out  of  his  way  and  put  his  own  money  into 
improving  the  very  old  and  nation-wide  linen  industry. 
These  useful  economic  policies,  however,  were  accom- 

131 


The  Story  of  the  Irish  Nation 

panied  by  a  sinister  social  policy  which  in  time  wrecked 
everything. 

This  policy  can  be  defined  in  an  Englishman's  words. 
Before  Elizabeth  died  Francis  Bacon  had  analyzed  the 
three  fundamental  difficulties  with  Ireland  from  the 
point  of  view  of  England's  policy. 

"The  first,  the  ambition  and  absoluteness  of  the 
chiefs  of  the  families  and  septs." 

The  chiefs,  in  other  words,  stood  in  the  way  of 
English  "ambition  and  absoluteness." 

"The  second,  the  licentious  idleness  of  their  kerns  and 
soldiers,  that  lie  upon  the  country  by  cesses  and  such 
like  oppressions." 

In  brief,  the  soldiers. 

"And  the  third,  the  barbarous  laws,  customs,  their 
brehon  laws,  habits  of  apparel,  their  poets  or  heralds 
that  enchant  them  in  savage  manners,  and  sundry 
other  dregs  of  barbarism  and  rebellion." 

In  other  words,  the  Irish  national  culture  and  co- 
hesion. 

To  root  out  the  chiefs,  the  soldiers,  and  the  national 
culture  was  now  the  task  to  which  English  statecraft 
applied  itself. 


132 


The  Confiscations 

-'n'T 

2 

It  was,  on  the  whole,  not  meant  to  be  malicious. 
Scotland  and  England  were  no  longer  embroiled,  and 
King  James  was  no  longer  in  need  of  Hugh  O'Neill's 
kerns  or  money.  The  royal  mind  could  be  given  to  the 
business  of  settling  a  country  which  had  long  been  a 
distraction  but  which  now  was  silent,  leaderless,  and 
limp. 

It  was  from  Machiavelli's  political  philosophy  that 
England  gleaned  its  principles  at  this  juncture,  not 
from  the  King  James  version  of  the  Bible.  Machiavelli 
counseled  colonies.  "A  prince  does  not  spend  much  on 
colonies,  for  with  little  or  no  expense  he  can  send  them 
out  and  keep  them  there,  and  he  offends  a  minority 
only  of  the  citizens  from  whom  he  takes  lands  and 
houses  to  give  them  to  the  new  inhabitants ;  and  those 
whom  he  offends,  remaining  poor  and  scattered,  are 
never  able  to  injure  him;  whilst  the  rest  being  uninjured 
are  easily  kept  quiet,  and  at  the  same  time  are  anx- 
ious not  to  err  for  fear  it  should  happen  to  them 
as  it  has  to  those  who  have  been  despoiled.  In  con- 
clusion, I  say  that  these  colonies  are  not  costly,  they 
are  more  faithful,  they  injure  less,  and  the  injured,  as 
has  been  said,  being  poor  and  scattered,  cannot  hurt." 

133 


The  Story  of  the  Irish  Nation 

This  suited  James  down  to  the  ground.  "From 
Machiavelli,"  says  Lord  Acton,  James  "took  the  idea 
of  the  state  ruling  itself,  for  its  own  ends,  through  ex- 
perts, not  depending  on  the  forces  of  society  or  the 
wishes  of"  common  men. 

James's  experts  agreed  on  the  desirability  of  loyal 
colonists.  Blennerhasset  wanted  to  crush  the  Irish 
harder,  on  Machiavelli's  theory  that  injury  ought  to  be 
of  such  a  kind  "that  one  does  not  stand  in  fear  of 
revenge."  But  Blennerhasset's  recommendations  were 
considered  excessive.  Ireland  had  been  decapitated. 
It  looked  absolutely  powerless  to  the  advisers  of  James. 


The  first  practical  business  in  Ulster  was  to  clear  the 
Irish  out,  the  second  to  move  the  non-Irish  in,  the 
third  to  let  no  Irish  return  except  safe  Irish,  in  safe 
territory,  at  double  the  settlers'  rent. 

The  legality  of  the  clearance  is  interesting.  The 
crown  had  pardoned  O'Neill  and  O'Donnell  and  had 
at  last  made  the  Irish  people  legal  "denizens"  of  their 
own  country.  With  the  departure  of  O'Neill  and  O'- 
Donnell it  was  held  right  and  proper  to  attaint  them. 
This  brought  Donegal,  Derry,  Tyrone,  and  Armagh 
into  the  receptive  lap  of  the  state^  O'Dogherty's  suurt 

134 


The  Confiscations 

of  rebellion  in  1607  cost  him  his  life  and  whatever  land 
he  had  held  in  these  counties.  As  to  Fermanagh  and 
Cavan,  Maguire  and  O'Reilly  had  also  been  "traitors," 
which  gave  the  crown  its  legal  grip  on  two  more 
counties. 

Unfortunately  for  British  law,  the  judges  had 
played  fast  and  loose.  They  had  made  some  grants  on 
the  English  theory  that  the  land  belonged  to  the  chief, 
but  in  other  cases  on  the  Irish  theory  that  the  land 
belonged  to  the  clansmen:  in  Cavan  and  Fermanagh 
they  had  clearly  committed  themselves  in  respect  of 
the  clansmen  as  occupiers  and  freeholders.  But  to 
make  the  Irish  into  tenants  at  will  was  now  demanded 
by  the  clearance  policy,  and  it  was  necessary  for 
England  to  break  its  word. 

The  English  took  all  of  these  six  counties  except 
about  one-eighth.  Nearly  three  hundred  Irish  pro- 
prietors were  given  English  title  to  586,000  acres  in 
view  of  their  showing  a  right  attitude  toward  the 
crown.  The  remaining  3,000,000  acres  went  to  Eng- 
lishmen and  Scotsmen;  "laborers  in  the  vineyard,"  as 
the  Welsh  lawyer  Sir  John  Davies  termed  them. 

These  laborers  in  the  vineyard  were  recruited  from 
two  nations  and  two  classes — but  all  from  the  state 
Protestant  or  Scottish  Presbyterian  religion.  The 

135 


The  Story  of  the  Irish  Nation 

large  grants   (of  three  thousand,  two  thousand,  and 
one  thousand  acres)  were  made  to  English  and  Scottish 


Pre-  Cromwellian 
Confiscations 


proprietors  who  were  called  undertakers  because  they 
"undertook"  to  colonize,  build  castles,  and  defend  the 

136 


The  Confiscations 

territory  as  knights.  (Hence  "baronetcies"  were  first 
devised  by  Bacon,  to  give  honorific  standing  to  under- 
takers.) Next,  these  proprietors,  including  the  Lon- 
don companies,  who  got  and  still  have  the  fatness  of 
Londonderry,  brought  in  English  settlers  and  Scot- 
tish settlers  of  the  sort  that  seemed  required  for  the 
job. 

The  English  had  a  longer  distance  to  transport  their 
cattle  and  equipment.  The  Scottish  poured  in  so  fast 
that  the  ferrymen  profiteered  scandalously,  pirates 
came  all  the  way  from  Barbary  to  raid  them,  and 
only  the  efficient  Dutch  fleet  made  their  passage  safe 
in  the  end.  Even  at  high  rents,  many  Irish  Tenants 
crept  in. 


Perhaps  40,000  Scottish  came  at  once.  They  were 
self-selected  in  part,  but  chosen  where  possible  on  the 
ground  that  they  had  proved  to  be  lively  on  the  border 
and  would  turn  that  liveliness  in  the  Irish  direction. 
"The  energetic  scouring  of  the  Scottish  border,"  says 
Henry  Jones  Ford,  "contributed  some  elements  to 
Ulster  plantation  that  did  not  make  for  peace  and 
order."  Vagabonds,  masterless  men,  wife-deserters, 
and  gentlemen  sought  by  the  law  made  rubble  for  the 

137 


The  Story  of  the  Irish  Nation 

basement  of  the  Ulster  edifice.  "Divine  Providence," 
the  Rev.  Robert  Blair  declared  in  1663,  "sent  over  some 
worthy  persons  for  birth,  education,  and  parts,  yet 
the  most  part  were  such  as  either  poverty,  scandalous 
lives,  or,  at  the  best,  adventurous  seeking  of  better 
accommodation,  set  forward  that  way." 

"From  Scotland  came  many,  and  from  England  not 
a  few,"  said  the  Rev.  Andrew  Stewart,  "yet  all  of  them 
generally  the  scum  of  both  nations,  who,  from  debt, 
or  breaking  and  fleeing  from  justice,  or  seeking  shelter, 
came  hither,  hoping  to  be  without  fear  of  man's  justice 
in  a  land  where  there  was  nothing,  or  but  little  as  yet, 
of  the  fear  of  God." 

Henry  Jones  Ford  believes  that  these  seventeenth 
century  accounts  are  exaggerated. 


The  result,  at  any  rate,  was  the  transfer  of  seven- 
eighths  of  this  Ulster  property  from  Irish  chiefs  and 
Irish  clansmen.  The  new  occupants  were  strong-handed 
men,  willing  to  act  as  despoilers  and  ready  to  defend 
their  spoils;  men  differentiated  from  the  Irish  by  lan- 
guage, religion,  habit,  and  political  allegiance.  They 
were  better  agriculturists  than  the  fighting  clansmen. 
But  their  very  technic  brought  Irishmen  back  to  the 

138 


The  Confiscations 

land  at  any  cost  and  very  soon  inculcated  in  all  Ulster 
the  old  Irish  custom  of  fixity  of  tenure  or  tenant  right. 
What  the  Irish  Jailed  to  do  was  "to  grow  civil  and 
become  English." 

To  make  them  English  filled  the  colonizing  mind  with 
zeal  and  a  kind  of  religious  glee.  The  Earl  of  Sussex 
and  Perrot  were  good  governors,  yes,  but  "they  did 
not  abolish  the  Irish  customs  nor  execute  the  law  in 
Irish  countries,  but  suffered  the  people  to  worship 
their  barbarous  lords  and  to  remain  utterly  ignorant  of 
their  duties  to  God  and  the  king."  So  Sir  John  Davies. 

God  now  has  a  place  in  state  papers.  The  king's 
amnesty,  says  Davies,  immediately  "bred  such  comfort 
and  security  in  the  hearts  of  all  men  as  thereupon  en- 
sued and  the  calmest  and  most  universal  peace  that 
ever  was  seen  in  Ireland."  The  law  reigned  everywhere. 
"Which  visitation,  though  it  were  somewhat  distasteful 
to  the  Irish  lords,  was  sweet  and  most  welcome  to  the 
common  people,  who,  albeit  they  were  rude  and  bar- 
barous, yet  did  they  quickly  apprehend"  order  and  law. 
The  people  in  County  Wicklow  "are  become  civil  and 
quiet."  The  streams  of  the  public  justice  water  the 
land,  "without  distinct  or  respect  of  persons."  Sir 
John  Davies,  himself  secure  in  a  big  Irish  estate,  quotes 
the  Bible  freely. 


The  Story  of  the  Irish  Nation 

Lord  Morley,  called  "Honest  John"  in  England,  does 
not  in  the  least  corroborate  the  Welshman :  he  sums  up 
the  treatment  of  the  O'Byrnes  to  which  Davies  refers. 
If  you  want  to  understand  "Irish  turbulence,"  Morley 
suggested,  you  "should  read  the  story  how  the 
O'Byrnes  were  by  chicane,  perjury,  imprisonment,  mar- 
tial law,  application  of  burning  gridirons,  branding- 
irons,  and  strappado,  cheated  out  of  their  lands." 

The  British  justice  that  the  O'Byrnes  received  came 
from  men  who  got  their  slice  of  the  land.  The  fate  of 
the  O'Byrnes  indicates  why  O'Neill  and  O'Donnell 
thought  it  better  to  leave  while  flesh  was  still  on  their 
bones. 

6 

Wentworth,  afterward  Earl  of  Strafford,  now  came 
over  with  his  economic  policy.  He  was  a  man  of  prac- 
tical ability  who  stood  no  nonsense.  He  imported 
Flemish  weavers  to  teach  the  Irish  the  best  linen  manu- 
facture. He  improved  flaxseed  and  corn-seed.  On  the 
question  of  land  proprietorship,  however,  he  pursued 
the  English  policy — depress  and  degrade  Irishmen  of 
property  who  won't  become  Englishmen.  It  had  been 
established  that  "no  length  of  occupation  could  give 
an  Irishman  any  right  to  lands  which  had  once  been 
in  English  hands."  This  had  shaken  out  more  natives 

140 


The  Confiscations 

and  brought  grants  to  Nugent,  the  Duke  of  Bucking- 
ham, etc.,  in  Longford,  Wexford,  Leitrim,  Westmeath. 
In  their  frantic  eagerness  to  secure  their  titles,  the 
Dublin  Anglo-Irish  parliament  voted  a  large  payment 
to  the  crown,  on  the  understanding  that  they  were  now 
to  be  secure.  Wentworth  went  behind  this  agreement. 
He  invited  the  Galway  grand  jury  (Anglo-Irish,  of 
course)  to  decide  that  certain  titles  were  the  crown's. 
The  jury  refused.  The  sheriff  went  to  jail,  where  he 
died,  and  the  jurors  were  fined  £4000  each.  A  more 
imaginative  jury  found  a  title  for  the  crown  in  April, 
1637. 

The  O'Brennans'  territory  in  Kilkenny  went  to 
Wandesforde,  Wentworth's  secretary.  Wentworth 
chuckled  sardonically  at  the  alacrity  with  which  the 
other  landowners  did  anything  and  everything  in  order 
to  retain  their  means  of  livelihood.  "I,  that  am  of 
gentle  heart,"  he  wrote,  "am  much  taken  with  the 
proceeding." 

The  Irish,  meantime,  were  beginning  to  be  acutely 
conscious  of »their  fate  as  a  nation  despoiled.  We  know 
from  Geoffrey  Keating,  whose  Irish  history  was  written 
in  this  period  (1610),  how  the  English  propaganda 
of  the  period  was  revolting  Irishmen.  Keating  wrote: 
"I  belong,  according  to  my  own  extraction,  to  the  Old 

141 


The  Story  of  the  Irish  Nation 

Galls  (foreigners)  or  the  Anglo-Norman  race.  I  have 
seen  that  the  natives  of  Ireland  are  maligned  by  every 
modern  Englishman  who  speaks  of  the  country.  .  .  . 
There  is  no  historian  who  has  written  upon  Ireland 
since  the  English  invasion,  who  does  not  strive  to  vilify 
and  calumniate  both  Anglo-Irish  colonists  and  the 
Gaelic  natives.  We  have  proofs  of  this  in  the  accounts 
of  the  country  given  by  Cambrensis,  Spenser,  Stani- 
hurst,  Hanmer,  Camden,  Barclay,  Morison,  Davies, 
Campion,  and  all  the  writers  of  the  New  Galls  [English 
new  in  Ireland]  who  have  treated  of  this  country"  But 
Keating's  contempt  for  the  dung-beetles,  as  he  called 
the  propagandists,  was  nothing  to  the  growing  exas- 
peration and  rage  and  despair  of  those  who  experienced 
what  has  been  termed  "systematic  iniquity."  The 
outcome  was  the  insurrection  of  1641. 

7 

In  this  insurrection,  which  extended  into  a  war, 
there  was  a  serious  conflict  of  motives.  In  the  world 
at  large  Rome  strove  to  intensify  and  force  Catholic 
claims  and  England  commenced  to  be  intolerant.  This 
enlisted  against  England  such  divers  groups  as  the 
Scottish  Covenanters,  the  Anglo-Irish  Catholic  aristoc- 
racy, and  the  Irish  common  people.  The  Covenanters 

142 


The  Confiscations 

were  already  in  revolt  in  the  Lowlands  and  soon  put  an 
army  into  Ireland.  But  the  question  at  once  arose, 
which  England  to  fight,  the  Royalist  England  or  the 
Parliamentarians.  The  Parliamentarians  were  "Eng- 
land" as  much  as  the  Royalists;  they  indeed  believed 
that,  underneath,  Charles  was  not  only  an  absolutist 
but  a  papist.  Since  the  Thirty  Years'  War,  really 
religious  war,  was  raging  on  the  Continent,  it  was 
natural  that  the  religious  passion  should  enter  into 
every  phase  of  this  crisscross  conflict. 

Rory  O'Moore  (an  O'Moore  of  Leix),  Richard 
Plunkett,  Sir  Phelim  O'Neill,  a  Maguire  of  Cavan,  were 
all  engaged  in  planning  an  insurrection.  Spain  was  to 
help,  and  General  Owen  Roe  O'Neill  to  come  from 
Flanders.  This  plot  was  complicated  by  the  fact  that 
the  Anglo-Irish  gentry  had  their  own  general,  Preston, 
a  Royalist,  who  later  took  the  field.  The  crown 
authorities  in  Ireland  learned  of  the  plot  from  a 
drunken  babbler  (drunkenness  now  appears  in  Irish 
chronicles),  but  before  they  could  act  the  North  was  in 
upheaval  with  a  rising  of  the  "injured  and  dispos- 
sessed." Because  the  Scots  were  in  arms  against  Eng- 
land about  the  prayer-book,  Sir  Phelim  O'Neill's  peo- 
ple picked  no  bone  with  the  Scottish  settlers.  They 
concentrated  against  the  English  settlers,  and  started 

143 


The  Story  of  the  Irish  Nation 

a  clearance.  At  first  there  was  little  manslaughter, 
though  ruthless  expulsion  and  cattle-driving.  But  the 
Scottish  settlers  would  not  stand  by.  They  joined 
with  the  troops  from  Dublin  to  stop  the  insurrection. 
What  began  as  a  clearance  became  a  melee  of  disorder, 
violence,  and  vengeance.  It  alarmed  and  enraged  the 
English  in  Ireland  as  nothing  had  before.  It  meant 
that  confiscation  might  not  work.  A  great  number  of 
English  were  killed  by  the  Irish,  in  many  cases  under 
ferocious  and  cruel  circumstances  worthy  of  Raleigh, 
Gilbert,  and  Carew.  The  number  used  to  be  given  as 
300,000,  but,  under  modern  analysis,  is  believed  to  have 
been  4029.  To  make  matters  worse,  Sir  Phelim 
O'Neill,  the  leader  of  the  insurrection,  had  cut  a  great 
seal  of  Scotland  and  tacked  it  on  to  a  forged  "com- 
mission" from  Charles  I,  which  was  supposed  to  sanc- 
tion a  rising  of  the  papists.  The  object  of  this  dis- 
honesty was  to  enlist  the  Anglo-Irish  Catholics.  O'Neill 
eventually  was  captured  and  executed.  He  admitted 
the  forgery,  and  declined  to  accept  a  Puritan  pardon 
on  condition  that  he  assert  the  commission  to  be  au- 
thentic. 

8 

Now  Owen  Roe  O'Neill  arrived  in  Ireland — "a  good 
soldier,"  according  to  Morley,  "a  man  of  valor  and 

144 


The  Confiscations 

character,  the  patriotic  champion  of  Catholic  Ireland." 
He  found,  of  course,  that  Gaelic  Catholic  Ireland 
needed  coordination  above  everything;  coordination 
with  the  Catholic  Anglo-Irish  and  peace  with  the 
Royalist  Anglo-Irish.  For  this  purpose  the  Confed- 
eration of  Kilkenny  was  called.  It  was  virtually  a 
supreme  council  of  the  allied  Irish,  which  lasted  most 
of  the  nine  years. 

In  August,  1642,  England  split  asunder.  The  Par- 
liamentarians took  the  field  against  the  Royalists. 
This  gave  Owen  Roe  O'Neill  and  Preston  and  Ormonde 
a  common  enemy  in  the  Parliamentarians,  but  they 
were  not  ready  yet  to  make  common  cause.  The  Old 
Irish  were  still  "papist  rebels"  to  the  conservative 
Ormonde:  his  idea  of  a  sound  alliance  with  the  papists 
was  to  whittle  their  aims.  The  terms  of  such  compro- 
mises were  bitterly  contested  at  Kilkenny,  where  the 
allies  met  with  much  pomp.  The  papal  nuncio  Rinuc- 
cini  stood  out  for  the  Old  Irish  and  complete  freedom. 
The  Anglo-Irish  landlords  and  the  Anglo-Irish  towns- 
men had  too  much  race  prejudice  to  care  for  their 
Old  Irish  rural  confederates.  The  Parliamentarians, 
meanwhile,  had  managed  under  Parsons,  Coote,  and 
Lord  Inchiquin  to  live  up  to  the  best  traditions  of 
savage  warfare.  Lord  Inchiquin,  known  as  Murrough 

145 


The  Story  of  the  Irish  Nation 

the  Burner,  was  an  O'Brien  of  the  old  stock,  now  more 
Protestant  than  the  Protestants.  "Nits  will  make 
lice,"  was  the  principle  on  which  Coote  killed  infants. 
The  Scottish  Covenanters,  at  first  shocked  by  Charles's 
execution,  at  last  joined  Coote  and  company  on  the  side 
of  the  Parliamentarians.  They  came  down  through 
Ulster.  At  Benburb  (July,  1646),  they  were  badly 
beaten  by  Owen  Roe  O'Neill.  Murrough  the  Burner 
won  in  Munster,  however,  and  massacred  his  own  coun- 
trywomen at  Cashel.  Ormonde,  beaten  by  the  parlia- 
mentarians at  Dublin,  threw  in  the  sponge.  Later, 
after  Owen  Roe  had  tried  direct  methods,  Ormonde 
manoeuvered  the  Old  Irish  out  of  the  policies  of  the 
Confederation.  In  1649,  on  the  last  day  of  January, 
Charles  I  was  executed.  In  November,  frustrated  and 
worn  out,  Owen  Roe  O'Neill  died  at  Cavan. 

9 

This  left  the  field  in  Ireland  to  Ormonde:  he  was 
already  working  for  young  Charles  II  and  the  ascen- 
dancy of  his  own  class  in  Ireland.  But  Ormonde  had 
a  tough  nut  to  crack  in  Oliver  Cromwell. 

This  brutal  fanatic  arrived  in  Ireland  August,  1649. 
He  got  to  Drogheda  in  September.  At  Drogheda  the 
Ormonde  soldiers,  in  part  English  and  in  part  men 

146 


The  Confiscations 

from  Kilkenny,  were  stormed  and  beaten.  Their  com- 
mander was  disarmed  and,  "being  in  the  heat  of  ac- 
tion," as  Cromwell  expressed  it,  "I  forbade  them  to 


Oliver    Cromwell 


spare  any  that  were  in  arms  in  the  town."  About  two 
thousand  disarmed  men  were  stabbed  and  slashed  to 
death.  Eighty  ran  for  their  lives,  to  a  steeple. 
"Whereon  I  ordered  the  church  steeple  to  be  fired,  when 
one  of  them  was  heard  to  say,  'God  damn  me,  God  con- 

147 


The  Story  of  the  Irish  Nation 

found  me;  I  burn,  I  burn!"  Fifty  were  dragged  from 
the  steeple  and  killed.  Thirty  burned  to  death.  A 
thousand  more  had  taken  refuge  in  the  church.  There, 
on  the  previous  Sunday,  the  crime  of  saying  mass  had 
been  perpetrated.  These  also  were  followed  up  and 
killed.  The  friars  were  now  sought  for.  "All  the 
friars,"  Oliver  tells  his  parliament,  "were  knocked  on 
the  head  promiscuously  but  two.  The  enemy  were 
about  three  thousand  strong  in  the  town.  I  believe  we 
put  to  the  sword  the  whole  number  of  the  defendants. 
I  do  not  think  thirty  of  the  whole  number  escaped  with 
their  lives." 

Cromwell  had  10,000  Ironsides  with  him  against 
3,000.  He  lost  sixty-four  killed. 

"It  was  the  spirit  of  God,"  he  told  the  parliament, 
"who  gave  your  men  courage  .  .  .  and  therewith  this 
happy  success.  And  therefore  it  is  good  that  God 
alone  have  all  the  glory." 

This  is  not  the  verdict  of  commentators  like  Theo- 
dore Roosevelt.  "It  was  the  fighting  of  the  Puritan 
troops  in  the  battle  itself  which  won,  and  not  their 
ferocity  after  the  battle,"  says  Roosevelt,  "and  it  was 
Cromwell  who  not  merely  gave  free  rein  to  this  ferocity 
but  who  inspired  it.  Seemingly  quarter  would  have 
been  freely  given,  had  it  not  been  for  his  commands. 

148 


The  Confiscation* 

Neither  in  morals  nor  in  policy  were  these  slaughters 
justifiable.  Moreover  it  must  be  remembered  that  the 
men  slaughtered  were  entirely  guiltless  of  the  original 
massacres  in  Ulster,  more  than  a  decade  before. 

"Drogheda  and  Wexford,"  Roosevelt  adds,  "are 
black  and  terrible  stains  on  Cromwell's  character." 

Cromwell's  account  of  his  behavior  sounds  as  if  he 
were  conforming  to  the  current  usages  of  war.  What 
he  did  at  Drogheda  and  later  was  contrary  to  the 
usages  of  Owen  Roe  O'Neill  in  the  same  period.  O'Neill, 
in  1642,  according  to  Lecky,  "expressed,  in  the  most 
emphatic  manner,  to  his  predecessor  his  horror  of  the 
crimes  that  had  been  tolerated.  He  sent  all  the  English 
who  were  prisoners  in  his  army  safe  to  Dundalk.  He 
burnt  many  houses  at  Kinnard,  as  a  punishment  for 
murders  which  had  been  committed  on  the  English. 
He  openly  declared  that  he  would  rather  join  the 
English  than  permit  such  outrages  to  be  unpunished. 
He  enforced  a  strict  discipline  among  his  riotous  fol- 
lowers, and  showed  himself,  during  the  whole  of  his 
too  brief  career,  an  eminently  able  and  honorable 
man." 

The  massacres  of  1641,  however,  had  inflamed  Eng- 
lish feeling  to  fever-heat.  For  nine  months  Cromwell 
conducted  his  crusade  of  Jesus,  who  died  that  men  may 

149 


The  Story  of  the  Irish  Nation 

live,  in  the  familiar  spirit  of  reprisal.  Against  the 
Royalists,  Anglo-Irish  Catholics,  and  remnants  of  the 
Old  Irish,  he  waged  his  war.  With  his  celebrated 
guns  and  his  big  army  he  took  Dundalk,  Wexf  ord,  New 
Ross,  Kilkenny,  Clonmel.  At  Clonmel,  however,  Crom- 
well lost  more  than  1000  men  in  one  assault,  and  disease 
had  eaten  away  hundreds  of  others.  After  Clonmel  he 
left  Ireland.  His  General  Ireton  took  Waterford, 
Limerick,  Athlone,  and  Galway,  while  Ormonde's 
frightened  garrisons  gave  up  nearly  all  the  Munster 
towns. 

In  addition  to  his  method  of  slaughtering  men  who 
had  laid  down  their  arms,  Cromwell  deported  a  large 
number  of  Irishmen  and  of  boys  and  girls  to  the  West 
Indies  and  the  American  colonies.  These  were  sold  as 
slaves. 

10 

The  eleven  years  from  the  1641  insurrection  to  the 
peace  of  1652  were  enormously  destructive.  From  a 
population  of  1,500,000,  as  estimated  by  Petty,  slaugh- 
ter and  disease  had  brought  the  number  down  to  900,- 
000.  The  extinction  of  these  lives  was  accompanied 
by  a  ravenous  consumption  and  wilful  destruction  of 
property.  But  more  was  to  follow.  A  peace  was  dic- 

150 


The  Confiscations 

tated  by  which  both  Irish  and  Anglo-Irish  were  to  pay 
for  their  conquest  out  of  whatever  land  they  had  left. 
In  this  remarkable  settlement  two  strains  of  reasoning 
were  combined.  One  was  the  reasoning  of  the  Round- 
head who  wished  to  punish  the  Anglo-Irish  Royalist. 
The  other  was  the  effect  of  a  rabid  fear  and  hatred 
of  the  papist.  Cromwell  was  a  fanatical  extremist  of 
that  dangerous  type  which  substitutes  righteousness 
for  history.  "Remember,  ye  hypocrites,  Ireland  was 
once  united  to  England,"  he  shouted  in  a  manifesto 
answering  the  Catholic  bishops.  He  talked  in  this 
strain  as  only  a  profoundly  ignorant  and  ferocious 
righteous  man  can  talk,  declaring  that  Ireland  had  had 
"equal  justice  from  the  laws."  Thereupon  he  arranged 
for  more  confiscations,  his  supporters  and  kindred  hav- 
ing subscribed  for  Irish  land  in  advance  of  the  con- 
quest. 

This  Cromwellian  settlement  conveyed  every  acre  in 
Ireland.  Unless  men  could  show  that  they  had  been 
right  all  the  way  through  (anti-papist,  anti-Royalist, 
anti-Irish,  but  also  pro-Parliamentarian  and  pro- 
English),  they  lost  their  shirts.  Cripples,  invalids,  in- 
fants, old  men,  and  old  women  who  failed  to  prove 
that  they  had  borne  arms  for  the  Parliamentarians — 
all  lost  their  land.  Only  twenty-six  Catholic  land- 

151 


The  Story  of  the  Irish  Nation 

lords  in  Ireland  were  able  to  qualify  under  terms  that 
so  heavily  taxed  both  honor  and  invention.  These 
white  blackbirds  proved  their  "constant  good  affec- 
tion" and  retained  80,000  acres. 

Eleven  million  acres  were  confiscated  in  all.  "Of 
these,"  says  W.  F.  T.  Butler  in  his  masterly  book  on 
"Confiscation  in  Irish  History,"  "about  half  a  million 
belonged  to  loyalist  Protestants  such  as  Lords  Or- 
monde, Inchiquin  (who  had  quarreled  with  Parliamen- 
tarians), and  Roscommon.  The  other  ten  and  a  half 
millions  belonged  in  1641  to  Catholics." 

Of  thet  eleven  million  acres  confiscated,  Catholic 
landowners  received  back  1,100,000  in  Connacht  and 
Clare.  The  remaining  ten  million  acres — half  Ireland 
— were  the  spoils  of  war. 

Half  the  forfeited  lands  were  given  to  civil  "adven- 
turers" who  had  ad-ventured  £360,000  for  the  sup- 
pression of  the  rebellion.  The  other  half  went  mainly 
to  Cromwell's  officers  and  soldiers.  These  latter  re- 
ceived Irish  land  in  lieu  of  back  pay.  Contractors 
were  included  in  this  scheme  of  reparation,  and  seventy 
eminent  republicans  helped  themselves  to  120,000  acres 
"of  some  of  the  best  lands."  Cute  men  like  Sir  William 
Petty  did  very  well  a  few  years  later  in  buying  out 
bored  or  improvident  settlers  for  a  little  ready  money. 

152 


The  Confiscations 
11 

"To  hell  or  Connacht"  was  a  hope,  not  an  achieve^ 
ment.  Mr.  Butler  points  out  that  the  first  men 
threatened  with  transplantation  were  those  Scottish 
denizens  of  Down  and  Antrim  who  had  bought  land 
there  from  Montgomery  and  Hamilton.  (Down  and 
Antrim  had  never  been  confiscated.  The  crows  that  fol- 
lowed the  plow  of  confiscation  got  good  pickings,  but 
Down  and  Antrim  were  private  pickings.)  But  these 
Ulster  Covenanters  escaped,  dangerous  as  their  prox- 
imity to  Scotland  was  felt  to  be.  And  most  of  the 
unfree  Irish  escaped.  These  men,  at  the  bottom  of 
the  Gaelic  social  system,  were  now  at  the  bottom  of 
the  new  system.  Who  else  were  to  hew  wood  and  draw 
water  for  the  New  English  landholders  ?  A  tremendous 
plea  went  up  for  "poor  laborers,  simple  creatures." 
In  the  end,  "only  landowners,  their  families,  and  such 
of  their  tenants  as  chose  to  accompany  them  were 
forced  to  move  into  Connacht  or  Clare."  "In  all," 
Mr.  Butler  computes,  "there  were  1073  landlords  and 
nearly  27,000  persons"  driven  from  Munster  and  Lein- 
ster  to  new  lands.  The  people  who  suffered  most  were 
the  chiefs  and  free  clansmen  who  had  retained  half 
Ireland  up  to  Cromwell's  time.  About  six  thousand 

153 


The  Story  of  the  Irish  Nation 

Catholic  landowners  who  had  established  their  titles 
were  now  debased  in  the  social  scale  by  being  entirely 
deprived  of  lands. 

The  serfs  had  to  endure  it,  but  not  the  fighting  Irish 
or  the  Catholic  townsmen  of  Anglo-Irish  stock.  More 
than  thirty  thousand  of  the  population,  depleting  the 
trading  towns  of  Waterford,  Galway,  and  Kilkenny  in 
particular,  went  out  of  Ireland.  Countless  Irishmen 
enlisted  in  the  armies  of  France  and  Spain. 

When  Charles  II  came  back  the  lingering  gentry 
cheered  up.  The  lawyers  got  a  stupendous  crop  of 
clients.  But  this  was  a  test  of  cleverness  and  sophisti- 
cation in  which  the  people  who  recovered  their  estates 
were  Ormonde,  Clancarthy,  Clanrickard.  "The  lesser 
men,"  Mr.  Butler  assures  us,  "were  deprived  of  every- 
thing." MacCarthy,  O'Sullivan  Bere,  Viscount  Ma- 
gennis  of  Iveagh,  the  O'Conor  Don — they  "lost  every 
acre."  "There  is  something  curiously  modern  about 
all  these  proceedings,"  Mr.  Butler  drily  observes.  "On 
the  one  side  we  have  the  credulous  optimism  of  the  Irish, 
their  idea  that  logic  and  right  should  override  might, 
their  belief  in  the  justice  of  the  cause  leading  them  to 
ask  for  the  unattainable,  their  inability  to  realize  the 
dislike  with  which  they  were  regarded  by  all  parties  in 
England,  their  failure  to  perceive  that  in  the  minds 

154 


The  Confiscations 

of  Englishmen  the  interests  of  England  outweighed  all 
other  considerations,  their  want  of  union,  the  selfish- 
ness of  their  great  men,  in  other  words  a  complete  ab- 
sence of  political  insight  and  ability. 

"On  the  other  side  there  is  the  grim  determination  to 
make  no  concession  without  a  struggle,  the  threat  in 
the  last  resort  of  the  sword,  the  appeal  to  race  hatred 
and  religious  prejudice,  the  amazing  dishonesty  of  indi- 
viduals seeking  for  place  and  profit." 

tyirf  V.  noHnt, 

12 

The  English,  in  short,  had  won.  Out  of  the  1,100,- 
000  in  Petty's  estimate,  600,000  papists  were  living  in 
one-room  hovels  without  any  hearth.  "If  you  value 
the  people  who  have  been  destroyed  in  Ireland  as  Slaves 
and  Negroes  are  usually  rated,"  says  the  pragmatic 
Petty,  "the  value  of  the  people  lost  will  be  £10,335,- 
000."  Petty's  tone  is  unmistakable;  the  tone  of  com- 
placent victory.  Trinity  College,  founded  by  Eliza- 
beth to  convert  the  papist,  is  flourishing.  So  is  the  es- 
tablished church.  But  the  Catholics  are  already  half- 
fed,  mangy,  dingy,  pulling  the  devil  by  the  tail.  Old 
bores  tell  the  young  people  about  "the  flight  of  the 
earls."  The  young  yawn,  partly  from  fatigue,  partly 
from  hunger.  The  women  of  the  family  listen  to  great 

155 


The  Story  of  the  Irish  Nation 

talk  about  the  Restoration  and  wonder  in  secret  what 
is  in  the  cupboard — half  a  candle,  perhaps,  a  cracked 
pitcher,  a  broken  rosary  beads,  a  few  pages  of  a  torn 
genealogy.  Those  were  great  times,  but  now  who  is 
here?  A  wild,  shy  retainer  who  creeps  to  his  corner 
without  a  word,  a  seannachy  with  gray  beard  who  is 
like  a  violin  with  one  string,  a  hunted  priest  with  hollow 
eyes  in  a  frieze  mantle,  a  purple-faced  ex-chief  who  used 
to  have  six  thousand  acres  in  Kerry — these  are  all 
that  come  to  windy  rooms  where  the  Restoration  of  big 
estates  is  cogged  and  conjured.  There  is  "credulous 
optimism,"  a  bottle  of  it,  right  by  the  man  who  has 
lived  from  1610  to  1690,  who  has  remembered  well  the 
day  when  the  New  Englishman  arrived  at  Liss :  he  went 
to  the  roof  of  the  castle  and  said,  yes,  this  was  now  his 
property,  as  far  as  the  eye  could  reach.  That  hap- 
pened not  to  one,  but  to  every  Catholic  proprietor. 
It  tore  a  thousand  heart-strings.  And  our  dreary 
friend  with  red-rimmed  eyes  had  been  born  when  the 
scorpions  and  whips  of  Elizabeth  still  left  their  welts. 
He  had  lived  through  Wentworth's  jolly  assizes;  had 
watched  the  hand  of  confiscation  creep  over  one  prov- 
ince, then  another;  had  heard  the  rumors  of  Catholic 
jacquerie,  of  Coote  and  Murrough  the  Burner;  had 
learned  that  Sir  James  Craig  the  undertaker  was  busy 

156 


The  Confiscations 

defending  his  rights.  He  had  sat  inside  the  circle  of 
Cromwell's  scourge,  and  harbored  the  breathless  and 
the  hunted.  They  had  been  warm  and  kind  people, 
these  optimistic  Irish.  The  Normans  had  mingled 
with  them,  come  to  understand  and  unite  with  them. 
But  now  this  debased  man  with  a  few  debased  coins 
had  to  go  among  the  jackals  of  the  law  in  London. 
People  would  shirk  him,  and  his  melancholy  history. 
He  would  not  know  the  right  lawyer,  or  the  right  minis- 
ter, or  the  right  minister's  mistress.  His  Gaelic  would 
amuse  Mr.  Smithkins.  He  would  stoop  to  bribe — the 
wrong  people.  He  would,  like  Pitt,  get  drunk.  And 
he  would  brag  and  boast,  and  perhaps  brawl,  like  Cap- 
tain Costigan.  A  dingy  history,  a  damp  ruin  of  a 
history,  ending  with  a  person  called  Petty  who  now 
owns  the  very  beautiful  land  of  Kenmare. 

13 

Well,  there  is  one  more  shake  of  the  dice,  even  after 
Oliver  Plunkett  has  been  tried,  tortured,  and  executed 
for  a  non-existent  Popish  Plot,  in  1681. 

That  shake  of  the  dice  is  on  an  exposed  card,  which 
is  James  II,  against  a  concealed  card,  William.  James 
is  a  Catholic  king — at  last.  He  makes  Tyrconnel  head 
of  his  Irish  Government,  who  favors  the  Catholics. 

157 


The  Story  of  the  Irish  Nation 

James  is  safe  enough  on  the  throne  of  England  till  he 
breeds  an  heir.  Then  the  English,  not  relishing  a 
renewal  of  political  seasickness,  send  for  the  solid 
Dutchman,  William  III. 

A  parliament  is  held  in  Dublin  in  1689.  It  affirms 
tolerance  to  the  Protestants  but  takes  back  the  land. 
This  is  inflammatory.  But  the  Catholic  Irish  are  now 
pawns  in  a  great  European  game.  The  French  fleet 
under  Tourville  brilliantly  defeats  the  combined  Dutch 
and  English  at  Beachy  Head.  James  comes  to  Ireland. 
With  a  French  army  and  Ormonde's  Irish  and  the  most 
militaristic  of  French  advisers  (who  want  to  massacre 
all  the  Protestants,  to  start  with),  he  meets  William 
and  his  Dutch  and  his  Danish  and  his  Scottish  at  the 
battle  of  the  Boyne. 

On  July  1,  1691,  "the  battle  of  the  Boyne  was  won, 
not  in  the  legendary  manner,  by  William,  with  his 
sword  in  his  left  hand,  or  Schomberg,  plunging  into  the 
river  to  meet  a  soldier's  death,  but  by  the  younger 
Schomberg,  who  crossed  higher  and  outflanked  the 
French.  Tourville's  victory,  after  that,  was  entirely 
useless.  William  offered  an  amnesty,  which  was  frus- 
trated by  the  English  hunger  for  Irish  estates."  So, 
Lord  Acton. 

In  the  previous  fighting  at  Londonderry,  against  the 
158 


The  Confiscations 


Jacobite  army,  the  'prentice  boys  and  Protestant  set- 
tlers had  stood  siege  magnificently.  Now  Limerick  was 
to  repulse  William,  with  Patrick  Sarsfield  as  the  bril- 

iLlMMi^ 


.bi 


£    9UIB 


.b 

Patrick  Sarsfield 


si  j  arfi 


mniora 


liant  Irish  figure.  Sarsfield's  courage  and  daring  en- 
liven the  somber  picture.  But  the  battle  of  Aughrim, 
where  the  French  general  St.  Ruth  was  killed  at  a 
crucial  moment,  turned  the  tide  against  absolutism, 
James,  Louis  XIV — and  the  Irish. 

159 


The  Story  of  the  Irish  Nation 

14 

This  ended  the  Stuarts.  Beneath  the  drums  that 
tieat  Sarsfield's  honorable  exit  from  Limerick  one 
listened  in  vain  for  the  breathing  of  the  Irish  nation. 
Englishmen  had  not  only  conquered  Ireland  but  had 
removed  from  it  everything  that  seemed  worth  having. 
Was  anything  left?  A  flicker  of  culture,  and  the 
Catholic  religion — these  were  allowed  to  remain,  by 
the  treaty  of  Limerick. 

So  the  history  of  the  seventeenth  century  limps  to 
a  close.  It  began  in  a  lurid,  bloody  dawn.  A  gray 
morning  followed,  which  was  almost  steady.  But 
clouds  gathered  storm  for  the  fierce  noonday  outbursts 
of  1641.  For  eleven  years  thereafter  the  skies  were 
torn,  the  earth  deluged,  the  country  convulsed  and 
desolated.  After  Cromwell,  whose  bloodshot  eye  saw 
the  Irish  as  papist  monsters,  the  afternoon  was  livid. 
With  the  restoration  of  the  Stuarts,  there  came  a 
quiver  of  watery  sunlight,  a  thin  flush  of  rose — for  a 
few  years  of  attempted  and  apprehensive  reconstruc- 
tion. Then  James  II  brought  Ireland  his  lost  cause, 
and  drew  on  her  the  ugly,  brutal  wrenching  tornado 
of  the  Williamite  wars.  Night  at  last  descends.  It  is 

160 


The  Confiscations 

a  night  of  such  blackness,  cold,  and  horror  that  it  re- 
minds one  only  of  a  no-man's-land  in  which  two  bands 
of  crouching  men  are  at  work  in  the  blackness ;  one  to 
kill  the  wounded,  the  other  to  rob  the  dead. 


- 


.•lyqaq 
>li{  orii   lonofl   oi   h-'ti.l   ,• 


161 


CHAPTER  VII 

THE  ABYSS 
1 

THE  native  Irish  were  now  broken,  disorganized, 
and  underfoot.  When  Sarsfield  had  capitulated 
at  Limerick  a  treaty  had  been  formally  signed  by 
which  the  Catholics  should  be  safe  from  further  perse- 
cution; and  the  Catholics  meant  five-sevenths  of  the 
people.  "Both  sides,"  says  the  English  historian  Green, 
"were,  of  course,  well  aware  that  such  a  treaty  was 
merely  waste  paper,  for  Ginkel  had  no  power  to  con- 
clude it,  nor  had  the  Irish  lords  justice.'*  The  treaty 
was  waste  paper,  to  the  English.  William,  a  disbeliever 
in  persecution,  tried  to  honor  the  pledges  that  had 
been  made  to  the  Irish.  But  he  was  king  on  suffer- 
ance: the  parliaments  of  England  and  Anglo-Ireland 
were  too  strong  for  him.  Public  opinion  was  the  new 
ruler  in  England,  and  at  the  moment  public  opinion 
was  cowardly,  vindictive,  and  resentful. 

Out  of  these  moods   came  the  penal  laws.     These 
162 


The  Abyss 

were  laws  intended  to  finish  the  work  which  England 
had  begun  in  the  reign  of  Henry  VIII.  From  1550  to 
1700,  as  the  English  viewed  it,  the  Irish  had  shown  a 
diabolic  spirit.  First,  they  were  foreign:  they  spoke 
Gaelic,  had  a  strange  land  system,  wore  queer  clothes, 
resisted  when  attacked,  were  rustic  and  yet  not  con- 
vinced of  their  inferiority. 

Henry  VIII  had  tried  to  solve  their  "problem" 
(the  problem,  that  is,  of  conquering  them)  by  making 
their  chiefs  into  earls  and  giving  them  a  parchment 
title  to  the  land  which  their  kinsmen  had  always  held. 
This  ignored  the  claims  of  the  sub-chiefs  and  their  ad- 
herents. The  work  of  forcing  all  these  hot-headed 
people  to  take  the  "solution"  made  in  London  for  Eng- 
lish convenience  was  too  much  for  English  temper. 
When  England  added  a  state  church  to  the  rest  of  its 
superiorities,  it  developed  a  cold  anger  toward  Ireland 
and  did  not  take  long  to  discover  a  moral  basis  for 
that  anger. 

From  the  age  of  Elizabeth  we  derive  the  authorized 
English  version  of  Irish  character.  By  the  time  the 
war  was  over  it  was  already  clear  to  the  English  that 
the  Irish  were  (1)  barbarous,  (2)  lawless,  (3)  treach- 
erous, (4)  malicious.  In  other  words,  the  enemy.  At 
this  very  time,  unluckily,  the  English  had  learnt  how 

163 


The  Story  of  the  Irish  Nation 

to  deal  with  the  enemy  in  savage  lands.  They  saw  in 
Ireland  another  America,  peopled  by  equally  wicked 
aborigines,  and  they  thought  it  perfectly  proper  to 


FROM      A     STAtUE       BY       HEINRlCH      BAUCKE,     PRESENTED       6V 
KAI4BR         WILHeLM  TO        CN&CANO        IN         («O7. 


seize  their  possessions.  The  insurrection  of  1641  was, 
in  their  view,  the  attempt  of  red  Indians  to  massacre 
white  people.  Hence  the  popish,  Gaelic-speaking, 
blanket-wearing  Irishman  became  an  object  of  moral 

164 


The  Abyss 

reprehension.  A  good  Irishman  was  a  dead  Irishman. 
A  natural  desire  for  easy  profit  and  "honest  graft" 
heightened  this  feeling.  Cromwell  saw  the  Irish  as 
hardly  human :  he  massacred  them  with  a  complete  con- 
viction of  outraged  Puritan  ideals,  half  hoping  that 
his  use  of  force  might  drive  out  the  devil.  But  the 
devil  in  the  Irish  combined  with  the  devil  in  the  Stuarts 
and  Jacobites.  When  James  II  was  in  power  he  had 
the  reckless  audacity  to  appoint  Tyrconnel  as  viceroy, 
whose  friendliness  to  Catholics  revived  every  fear  of 
the  English  settlers.  The  wickedness  of  this  proced- 
ure was  evident.  Whatever  terms  were  agreed  upon 
at  Limerick,  English-in-Ireland,  hereafter  to  be  called 
the  Ascendancy,  had  no  use  for  them.  Nothing  ap- 
peared more  natural,  in  the  flush  of  victory,  than  to 
devise  a  succession  of  laws  which  would  humiliate,  in- 
jure, and  forever  weaken  the  remnants  of  the  Irish 
nation. 

What  resulted,  according  to  Green,  was  a  hundred 
years  of  "the  most  terrible  legal  tyranny  under  which 
a  nation  has  ever  groaned." 


The  penal  laws  were  based  on  the  fixed  Catholicism 
of   the   common   Irish.     Accepting   Catholicism   as    a 

165 


The  Story  of  the  Irish  Nation 

superstitious  and  idolatrous  practice  to  which  the  Irish 
were  too  ignorant  not  to  cling,  the  men  who  had  bene- 
fited by  confiscation  now  proceeded  to  put  the  finishing 
touches  to  the  conquest.  They  first  limited  the  number 
of  priests  to  eleven  hundred,  and  banished  the  bishops 
who  might  ordain  successors.  They  illegalized  mass, 
except  in  the  case  of  registered  priests.  Having  thus 
endeared  the  church  to  the  common  Irish,  they  turned 
their  attention  to  the  laymen. 

The  Irish  Catholic  was  excluded  from  the  vote,  from 
municipal  and  parliamentary  offices,  from  even  sitting 
in  the  gallery  of  the  parliament.  He  was  not  allowed 
to  become  a  barrister  or  solicitor,  a  sheriff  or  a  con- 
stable. He  was  prohibited  from  residing  in  either 
Limerick  or  Galway.  He  was  compelled  to  pay  special 
and  extra  taxes.  He  was  not  allowed  to  carry  arms, 
make  arms,  sell  them,  or  join  the  army.  He  was  for- 
bidden to  print  books  or  newspapers,  to  take  more  than 
two  apprentices  in  any  trade  except  linen  manufacture, 
or  to  become  an  apprentice  in  any  trade  to  any 
Protestant. 

He  was  forbidden  to  teach  school.  He  was  forbid- 
den to  attend  Catholic  school  or  college.  He  was  for- 
bidden to  send  his  children  abroad  to  school  or  college. 

He  was  not  allowed  to  lease  land  for  more  than 
166 


The  Abyss 

thirty-one  years,  or  to  make  more  than  a  certain  profit 
on  leased  land,  or  to  lend  money  on  land.  He  was  for- 
bidden, under  automatic  penalties  as  regarded  prop- 
erty, to  marry  a  Protestant.  He  was  forbidden  to 
leave  his  land  to  his  eldest  son.  His  eldest  son  could 
inherit  all  the  land  by  turning  Protestant:  otherwise 
the  land  was  to  be  split  up  among  all  the  sons. 

Any  child  who  turned  Protestant  could  escape  his 
parents'  custody  and  obtain  an  allowance.  Any  eldest 
son  who  turned  Protestant  could  immediately  become 
the  proprietor  of  the  family  estate,  making  his  father 
a  life-tenant.  A  wife  who  turned  Protestant  could  re- 
ceive an  allowance  and  a  legal  separation.  Children 
left  without  parents  were  given  to  a  Protestant  guard- 
ian to  be  brought  up  as  Protestants. 

No  Catholic  could  own  a  horse  worth  more  than  £5, 
or  keep  a  horse  for  which  a  Protestant  tendered  him  £5. 

These  laws  were  not  for  the  exclusive  benefit  of  the 
Catholics.  The  nonconformists  were  included  in  some 
of  them.  The  ground  was  now  laid  for  the  republican- 
ism of  Northeast  Ulster,  and  for  the  fellow-feeling, 
sympathy,  and  magnanimity  which  the  Quakers  have 
so  steadily  manifested  toward  Ireland. 

These  penal  laws,  it  is  important  to  note,  were 
religious  but  also  deftly  economic.  They  were  well- 

167 


The  Story  of  the  Irish  Nation 

planned.  Their  object  was  to  deprive  the  native  Irish 
of  capital,  to  drive  them  into  the  position  of  agricul- 
tural serfs  and  there  give  them  the  alternative  of  being 
endlessly  sweated  or  of  adopting  the  lowest  possible 
standard  of  life.  The  Irish,  need  it  be  said,  tried  it 
both  ways.  When  they  worked  themselves  to  the  bone 
for  their  English  masters,  they  were  regarded  as  harm- 
less poor  slaves  occupying  the  station  to  which  it  had 
pleased  a  Protestant  God  to  call  them.  When  they 
declined  to  slave,  they  were  called  lazy,  idle,  shiftless, 
dirty,  and  drunken.  English  agriculturists  like  Arthur 
Young  pointed  out  with  much  sagacity  that  it  was 
slovenly  of  them  to  raise  no  crops  except  potatoes, 
foolish  of  them  to  drink  cheap  whisky,  stupid  of  them 
to  raise  a  houseful  of  children.  All  of  these  observa- 
tions were  important  and  edifying,  and  have  been 
quoted  ever  since  by  innumerable  writers  who  never 
tried  the  experiment  of  raising  a  family  on  sixpence 

a  day. 

3 

British  justice,  at  any  rate,  was  in  the  saddle.  The 
hunt  was  on,  and  the  hounds  hot  after  the  Irish  for 
three  generations.  The  black  art  of  persecution  can 
only  be  applied,  however,  at  the  price  of  public  in- 
famy; and  we  witness  the  enslavement  of  the  common 

168 


The  Abyss 

Irish  going  hand  in  hand  with  the  corroding  of  the 
Anglo-Irish  character.  No  one  can  dispute  the  break- 
down of  the  Gaelic  population.  Equally  no  one  can 
dispute  the  rottenness  of  the  Protestant  Ascendancy. 
What  is  commonly  called  Irish  patriotism  in  this  period 
is  mainly  the  effort  of  this  Protestant  Ascendancy  to 
purge  itself.  The  names  of  Molyneux,  Swift,  Berkeley, 
Lucas,  Flood,  Charlemont,  Grattan  are  associated  with 
the  Irish  nation  in  the  eighteenth  century.  But  these 
men  belong  to  Ireland  scarcely  more  than  Congreve, 
Goldsmith,  Burke,  Sterne  or  Sheridan.  One  of  them, 
Grattan,  put  political  resurrection  in  a  single  line: 
"The  Irish  Protestant  could  never  be  free  till  the  Irish 
Catholic  had  ceased  to  be  a  slave."  But  when  the 
Irish  Catholic  gave  signs  of  ceasing  to  be  a  slave,  Pitt 
and  British  policy  tore  the  flimsy  independence  of  the 
Anglo-Irish  to  shreds,  and  rammed  both  slaves  and 
slaveholders  into  the  political  internment-camp  called 
the  Union. 

Jonathan  Swift,  a  disillusioned  man  with  no  senti- 
mentality and  a  tortured  heart,  was  compelled  to  spend 
his  days  in  penal  Ireland.  He  has  left  his  picture  of 
the  common  people  after  one  generation  of  penal  laws. 

"It  is  a  melancholy  object  to  those  who  walk  through 
this  great  town  or  travel  in  the  country,"  he  wrote 

169 


The  Story  of  the  Irish  Nation 

from  Dublin  in  1729,  "when  they  see  the  streets,  the 
roads,  and  cabin  doors,  crowded  with  beggars  of  the 
female  sex,  followed  by  three,  four,  or  six  children,  all 
in  rags  and  importuning  every  passenger  for  an  alms. 
These  mothers,  instead  of  being  able  to  work  for  their 
honest  livelihood,  are  forced  to  employ  all  their  time 
in  strolling  to  beg  sustenance  for  their  helpless  infants, 
who  as  they  grow  up  either  turn  thieves  for  want  of 
work,  or  leave  their  dear  native  country  to  fight  for 
the  pretender  in  Spain,  or  sell  themselves  to  the 
Barbadoes." 

Why  not,  says  Swift  in  savage  irony,  stew,  roast, 
bake,  or  boil  these  superfluous  babies?  They  would 
make  succulent  food. 

The  old,  he  declares,  are  taken  care  of.  "It  is  very 
well  known  that  they  are  every  day  dying  and  rotting 
by  cold  and  famine,  and  filth  and  vermin,  as  fast  as 
can  be  reasonably  expected.  And  as  to  the  young 
laborers,  they  are  now  in  as  hopeful  a  condition;  they 
cannot  get  work,  and  consequently  pine  away  from 
want  of  nourishment,  to  a  degree  that  if  at  any  time 
they  are  accidentally  hired  to  common  labor,  they 
have  not  strength  to  perform  it ;  and  thus  the  country 
and  themselves  are  happily  delivered  from  the  evils  to 
come."  Destroy  the  babies,  then,  and  the  Irish  prob- 

170 


The  Abyss 

lem  is  solved.  "For  first,  as  I  have  already  observed, 
it  would  greatly  lessen  the  number  of  papists,  with 
whom  we  are  yearly  overrun,  being  the  principal 
breeders  of  the  nation  as  well  as  our  most  dangerous 
enemies;  and  who  stay  at  home  on  purpose  to  deliver 
the  kingdom  to  the  pretender,  hoping  to  take  their 
advantage  by  the  absence  [absenteeism]  of  so  many 
good  Protestants,  who  have  chosen  rather  to  leave  their 
country  than  stay  at  home  and  pay  tithes  against 
their  conscience  to  an  episcopal  curate." 


Swift's  irony  is  sound  history.  It  enables  us,  even 
without  the  aid  of  innumerable  documents  that  sup- 
port it,  to  see  the  abominable  servitude  to  which  the 
Irish  are  reduced. 

Some  hundreds  of  thousands  of  Irishmen  are  pouring 
to  the  Continent,  to  fight  as  willing  mercenaries  in  the 
ranks  of  France,  Austria,  and  Spain.  From  these 
refugees  came  the  famous  Irish  Brigade.  Count 
Thomas  Arthur  Lally,  Major  O'Mahony,  the  Due 
de  Feltre,  General  O'Meara,  Prime  Minister  Wall 
in  Spain,  General  Peter  Lacy  in  Russia,  Field-Marshal 
Lacy  in  Austria,  John  Barry  of  the  American  navy, 

171 


The  Story  of  the  Irish  Nation 

O'Higgins  of  Chile — these  were  some  of  the  Irish  flung 
far  from  Ireland. 

Those  who  remain  at  home  have  sunk  in  the  social 
scale.  Most  Irishmen  now  have  the  rank  of  day- 
laborers.  They  live  in  mud  huts  on  potatoes,  skim 
milk,  or  water.  They  are  liable  to  typhus  and  famine. 
A  great  famine  kills  150,000  in  1740-41.  Yet  they 
breed  fast,  and  as  the  young  grow  up  they  become 
cottiers ;  men  who  pay  a  high  rent  for  a  tiny  holding, 
on  which  they  hope  to  keep  a  cow  or  two,  a  pig,  a  few 
ridges  of  potatoes.  They  work  for  their  landlord  as 
well  as  pay  rent,  and  if  they  displease  him,  he  (or  more 
likely  his  agent)  evicts  them  at  will.  The  land,  for 
which  they  are  not  educated,  is  the  main  Irish  occupa- 
tion. A  pipeful  of  tobacco  is  the  one  luxury  they  per- 
mit themselves.  They  live  in  rags,  afraid  of  the  land- 
agent's  estimating  eye,  the  tithe-collector  who  is  en- 
titled to  their  Catholic  pennies  for  the  established 
church,  the  gombeen-man  who  lends  them  money  for 
the  frequent  funeral,  the  hearth-money  man  who  collects 
their  taxes  though  they  have  no  hearth.  Their  furni- 
ture is  a  black  pot,  a  basin,  a  wooden  stool,  one  cup 
or  perhaps  two,  a  heap  of  straw  for  a  bedstead.  The 
manure-pile  in  front  of  their  door  is  filthy.  To  keep 
clean,  or  to  keep  the  children  clean,  is  literally  impos- 

172 


The  Abyss 

sible,  and  yet  kind  ladies  already  exist  who  want  them 
to  be  clean  and  energetic  and  self-respecting  and 
Protestant.  But  most  of  the  gentry  are  content  to 
ride  galloping  by,  to  live  a  life  which  centers  around 
the  claret-bottle  and  the  punch-bowl,  dueling  and  gam- 
ing, to  sit  as  the  stern  magistrate  on  the  bench  and 
order  men  and  women  flogged  for  trivialities,  to  avoid 
fair  dealing  as  weakness,  and  to  regard  mercy  as 
treason. 

We  may  leave  the  native  Irish  out  of  history  for 
three  generations.  Many  of  them  have  traditions  to 
which  they  adhere,  despite  the  fate  of  serfs.  They 
have  enough  spirit  left  to  compose  religious  songs  and 
love-songs  in  Gaelic.  The  blackbird  does  not  know  of 
the  penal  laws,  and  an  Irish  heart  lifts  to  the  voice  of 
the  blackbird.  The  sun  is  not  Protestant  or  Catholic, 
and  it  shines  for  youth  in  spite  of  everything.  Ire- 
land, the  Dark  Rosaleen,  Roseen  Dhu,  is  the  object  of 
intense  yearning  and  pity  and  love.  Men  still  dream 
of  freeing  Ireland.  The  hedge  schoolmaster  shambles 
into  being.  Children  in  bare  feet  kneel  in  the  protected 
corner  of  thick  hedgerows,  and  pluck  a  daisy  or  a 
dandelion  with  straying  hand  while  their  eyes  follow 
the  earnest  man  who  teaches  them  their  Latin.  And, 
finally,  there  is  the  priest  or  the  hunted  bishop.  There 

173 


The  Story  of  the  Irish  Nation 

are  humble  homes,  hovels  even,  in  which  the  secret  net- 
work of  religious  life  is  woven.  The  priest  is  becom- 
ing the  leader,  the  counselor,  the  consoler.  He  is 
threatened  by  law  with  the  branding-iron.  He  risks 
everything  to  shepherd  his  people.  And  upon  him 
the  people  concentrate  the  loyalty  in  which  England 
alone  finds  them  deficient,  the  loyalty  which  is  of  all 
loyalties  the  strongest — the  loyalty  of  the  oppressed. 

There  was  a  certain  joy  in  whipping  the  Irish  be- 
cause the  Protestants  had  been  ill-treated  in  France; 
it  was  easier  than  whipping  the  French  themselves.  A 
number  of  valuable  by-products,  in  addition,  seemed  to 
be  promised  by  persecution.  There  was  a  career  for 
spies,  for  informers,  for  Charter  School  teachers,  for 
priest-hunters.  There  was  a  great  deal  of  rack-rent, 
to  be  spent  at  Bath  and  in  London ;  and  a  good  living 
to  be  made  by  rent-rackers  and  men  who  "farm"  the 
tithes.  The  wounds  of  Ireland  attracted  many  flies. 


But  these  were  small  advantages,  and  the  Anglo- 
Irish  governing  class  of  the  eighteenth  century  had  by 
no  means  an  easy  time.  They  represented  not  only 
the  landed  interest  and  church  interest  of  Ireland  but 
the  mercantile  interest;  and  this  was  the  era  of  that 

174 


The  Abyss 

famous  English  mercantile  theory  by  which  an  excess 
of  manufactured  imports  was  regarded  as  the  road  to 
ruin.  It  was  England,  the  English  parliament,  which 
took  the  mercantile  theory  so  seriously,  which  looked 
on  Anglo-Irish  manufactures  with  jealous  apprehen- 
sion, which  looked  on  the  colonies  as  the  God-given 
dumping-ground  of  its  own  products,  and,  in  general, 
spread  both  elbows  on  the  table  and  circled  with  eager 
arm  the  heaping  platter  of  industrialism. 

Nothing  could  have  been  worse  for  Anglo-Ireland. 
For  early  in  the  eighteenth  century  the  English  parlia- 
ment, having  completely  eliminated  the  native  Irish  as 
citizens,  took  a  severe  tone  toward  the  Anglo-Irish 
parliament  in  Dublin.  By  Poynings*  Law  (1495)  the 
Norman-Irish  had  themselves  agreed  that  the  assent 
of  the  English  privy  council  must  be  procured  before 
any  bill  could  be  introduced  into  the  Irish  parliament. 
They  had  also  agreed  that  laws  made  by  the  English 
parliament  could  be  applied  to  Ireland.  But  it  sur- 
prised and  pained  the  inheritors  of  this  colonial  states- 
manship to  find  that,  in  the  day  of  their  triumph  over 
the  native  Irish,  they  were  themselves  to  be  curtailed. 
The  English  parliament  had  on  previous  occasions 
brutally  prohibited  the  export  of  Irish  cattle  and  Irish 
provisions.  Now  they  set  out  to  destroy  Ireland's 

175 


The  Story  of  the  Irish  Nation 

chief  textile  industry.     They  forbade  the  export  of 
woolens. 

This  was  an  act  of  tyranny  for  which  the  Anglo- 
Irish  were  neither  socially  nor  constitutionally  pre- 
pared. What,  after  all,  was  their  status?  "Though 
English  to  the  Irish,"  said  a  Norman,  "we  are  as  Irish 
to  the  English."  This  was  still  their  status  in  the 
days  of  George  I.  When  Ormonde  had  gone  about  im- 
proving Irish  business  in  1665 — importing  Huguenots 
and  other  Continentals  to  make  lace,  linen,  gloves,  and 
glass — he  had  done  so  with  a  shrewd  idea  of  the  proper 
Anglo-Irish  attitude.  "If  it  prove  or  be  thought  that 
Ireland's  being  above  water  hurts  England,  some  in- 
vention must  be  found  to  sink  it."  But  this  trade 
policy  did  not  suit  the  Protestant  bourgeoisie.  The 
iron-works  were  continued  until  all  the  Irish  forests 
were  cut  down  for  fire-wood ;  that  was  all  right,  because 
the  Anglo-Irish  feared  the  "wood  kerns"  or  wandering 
soldiers  who  prowled  in  the  shade.  But  what  about 
prohibitions  that  were  an  obsequious  answer  to  the  pro- 
tests of  English  merchants  ?  And  Scottish  merchants  ? 
What  about  the  Navigation  Acts,  which  crippled  the 
Irish  carrying-trade?  What  about  a  law  that  did  not 
allow  the  Irish  to  export  glass,  or  to  import  glass 
except  from  England?  What  about  a  law  that  pre- 
176 


The  Abyss 

vented  Ireland  trading  with  the  colonies,  that  put  a 
duty  on  salt  needed  for  the  fisheries,  and  on  coal, 
needed  for  everything? 

The  struggle  of  Irish  trade  to  establish  itself  in  the 
eighteenth  century  against  the  commercial  restrictions 
of  England  is  best  to  be  understood  by  remembering 
the  Boston  Tea-Party.  Ireland,  or  rather  Anglo-Ire- 
land, could  have  had  a  similar  tea-party  once  a  week. 


But  the  Anglo-Irish  parliament  had  not  only  no 
standing  in  the  eyes  of  constitutional  lawyers;  it  was 
hopelessly  corrupt  within.  Of  its  300  members,  172 
were  nominated.  Of  these  172,  half  were  owned  by 
the  Government,  half  as  private  property  with  a  cash 
price  on  them.  The  others  were  elected  by  something 
not  remotely  resembling  a  modern  popular  election. 

Till  the  middle  of  the  century  this  corrupt  little 
body  was  run  in  the  "English  interest."  "Burgundy, 
closeting,  and  palaver"  were  later  employed,  but  the 
greatest  victory  scored  was  simply  the  transfer  of  the 
most  powerful  boss  from  England  to  a  small  inside 
group  of  Anglo-Irishmen. 

The  tail-light  of  history  has  not  yet  illuminated 
every  crevice  of  these  packed,  non-representative  as- 

177 


The  Story  of  the  Irish  Nation 

semblies;  but  we  know  enough  to  say:  foul.  And  yet 
Swift's  voice  was  raised  as  early  as  1720  to  urge  the 
Anglo-Irish  to  behave  as  freemen.  He  coined  a  fa- 
mous phrase:  "In  reason  all  government  without  the 
consent  of  the  governed  is  the  very  definition  of  slav- 
ery. .  .  .  The  remedy  is  wholly  in  your  own  hands,  and 
therefore  I  have  digressed  a  little  in  order  to  refresh 
and  continue  the  spirit  so  reasonably  raised  among 
you,  and  to  let  you  see  that  by  the  laws  of  God,  of 
nature,  of  nations,  and  of  your  country,  you  are,  and 
you  ought  to  be,  as  free  a  people  as  your  brethren  in 
England." 

Carpet-baggers,  however,  are  not  "of  nature"  free. 
The  best  men  in  Anglo-Ireland  did  not  go  so  far  as  to 
call  their  associates  carpet-baggers.  They  were,  how- 
ever, sincere  in  their  desire  for  reform;  they  wanted  a 
definite  term  put  to  the  life  of  a  parliament,  control  of 
the  money-bills,  an  abolition  of  sinecures,  a  rescinding 
of  Poynings*  Law,  control  of  the  militia,  a  tax  on 
absentees.  It  revolted  them  to  be  treated  as  inferiors, 
to  be  run  from  England,  by  England,  for  England,  at 
the  cost  of  so  much  per  vote.  They  never  learned  to 
like  the  manner  in  which  their  Majesties  unloaded  on 
Ireland  the  more  subtle  and  intimate  obligations  which 
the  English  parliament  brutally  cold-shouldered. 

178 


The  Abyss 

Lecky  enumerates  these  items  for  which  Ireland  had 
to  pay:  "The  Duke  of  St.  Albans,  the  bastard  son  of 
Charles  II,  enjoyed  an  Irish  pension  of  £800  a  year; 
Catherine  Sedley,  the  mistress  of  James  II,  had  another 
of  £5000  a  year.  William  III  bestowed  confiscated 
lands,  exceeding  an  English  county  in  extent,  on  his 
Dutch  favorites,  Portland  and  Albemarle,  and  a  con- 
siderable estate  on  his  former  mistress,  Elizabeth  Vil- 
liers.  The  Duchess  of  Kendal  and  the  Countess  of 
Darlington,  the  two  mistresses  of  George  I,  had  pen- 
sions of  the  united  annual  value  of  £5000.  Lady 
Walsingham,  the  daughter  of  the  Duchess  of  Kendal, 
had  an  Irish  pension  of  £1500.  Lady  Howe,  the 
daughter  of  Lady  Darlington,  had  a  pension  of  £500. 
Madame  de  Walmoden,  one  of  the  mistresses  of  George 
II,  had  an  Irish  pension  of  £3000.  The  queen  dowager 
of  Prussia,  sister  of  George  II,  Count  Bernsdorff,  who 
was  a  prominent  German  politician  under  George  I, 
and  a  number  of  less-noted  German  names  may  be 
found  on  the  Irish  pension  list." 

The  Anglo-Irish  parliament  is  an  instructive  spec- 
tacle. If  topics  arose  to  excite  public  opinion — the 
debasement  of  the  currency  if  not  the  debasement  of 
the  Catholics,  the  suppression  of  the  woolen  industry 
if  not  the  suppression  of  dissenters — there  immediately 

179 


The  Story  of  the  Irish  Nation 

was  revealed  the  morbid  political  condition  of  the 
country.  On  what  moral  principle  could  the  Anglo- 
Irish  rally  their  opposition  to  the  English  conqueror? 
Swift  said,  "the  consent  of  the  governed."  But  Swift 
was  too  keen  a  mind  to  attempt  to  limit  this  principle 
to  the  Ascendancy.  In  resenting  the  fact  that  Eng- 
land could  prohibit  Irish  goods  while  Ireland  was  not 
free  to  retaliate,  Swift  and  the  honest  men  who  rea- 
soned with  him  were  in  the  way  of  ceasing  to  be  hy- 
phenated and  definitely  becoming  nationalist  Irishmen. 
It  was  thus,  in  fact,  that  Protestant  nationalism 
started,  as  a  natural  outcome  of  humane  conviction 
and  philanthropy.  But  in  the  sturdy  refusal  of  such 
men  to  call  themselves  Englishmen  so  long  as  they 
were  treated  as  colonials,  there  was  as  yet  only  a  nega- 
tive nationalism.  The  Anglo-Irish  had  a  long  way  to 
go  before  they  became  really  Irish. 


The  history  of  the  eighteenth  century  is,  in  great 
measure,  the  failure  of  this  Anglo-Irish  parliament  to 
become  national.  Out  of  their  local  ascendancy  the 
meaner  of  the  Anglo-Irish  were  content  with  the  plums 
of  bribery.  The  nobler  of  the  Anglo-Irish  hated  brib- 
ery and  the  bribed.  They  saw  that  Ireland  must  have 

180 


The  Abyss 

autonomy,  and  they  risked  a  great  deal  to  secure  it. 
But  it  was  only  the  few  who  perceived  that  no  parlia- 
ment could  be  free  unless  it  were  representative,  and 


Henry   G rattan 


no  parliament  could  be  representative  unless  it  were 
popular — it  was  only  these  few  who  undertook  the  real 
task  that  confronted  an  Irish  parliament.  That  task, 
of  course,  was  to  resurrect  the  Irish  nation.  It  meant 
renouncing  ascendancy  and  reversing  the  penal  code. 

181 


The  Story  of  the  Irish  Nation 

It  meant  breaking  with  England  on  its  policy  of  im- 
perialism. This  was  more  than  the  Anglo-Irish  de- 
sired. They  wanted  to  be  democratic ;  they  also  wanted 
to  be  on  top.  They  wanted  to  be  liberal;  they  also 
wanted  to  be  safe.  Grattan  came  nearer  than  any  one 
else  to  seeing  the  need  for  a  united  Ireland,  but  Grat- 
tan's  toleration  of  the  Catholics  was  based  on  the 
hypothesis  that  the  Catholics  would  always  be  as  loyal 
as  himself. 

The  Ascendancy  had  a  plainer,  rougher  instinct  for 
the  facts.  They  knew  that  the  Catholics  could  not  be 
"conciliated."  The  native  Irish  wanted  Ireland:  to 
share  Ireland  on  an  equality  with  the  Irish  was  more 
than  these  Anglo-Irish  squireens  could  stand.  If  the 
placemen  were  displaced,  the  corruptionists  expelled, 
the  rotten  boroughs  fumigated,  the  result  must  neces- 
sarily be  to  admit  the  democratic  principle  and  flood 
the  parliament  with  Catholic  Irish.  This  could  not 
be.  And  because  it  was  socially  impossible  Pitt  found 
inside  Grattan's  parliament  the  seeds  of  corruption 
which  he  was  to  ripen  with  such  art  and  care.  The 
Act  of  Union  was,  of  course,  infamously  manipulated. 
Honest  policies  do  not  require  such  manipulation.  But 
it  was  the  racial  bigotry  of  the  Anglo-Irish  parliament 
which  made  it  in  the  end  so  easy  to  destroy. 

182 


The  Abyss 


It  had,  however,  British  grandiloquence.  Before  it 
was  destroyed  a  great  many  grand  gestures  were  to  be 
made  in  College  Green  and  much  rhetoric  was  to  be 
expended.  The  bull-baiting  and  cock-fighting  of  the 
squireens  were  nothing  to  the  denunciation  of  tyrants 
and  oppressors  which  was  to  entertain  the  parliament. 
And  because  the  Catholic  native  was  already  meek  and 
debilitated,  the  penal  laws  were  nobly  relaxed.  A 
Catholic  was  allowed  to  rent  a  bog  for  sixty-one  years 
provided  it  was  a  mile  from  a  town,  more  than  four 
feet  deep,  etc.  An  innocuous  Catholic  Committee  was 
tolerated  about  the  middle  of  the  century. 

8 

Very  different  were  the  Whiteboys,  who  sprang  into 
existence  in  the  South.  The  commons  which  had  pre- 
viously been  used  by  the  poor  people  for  grazing  had 
been  forcibly  enclosed,  and  as  a  result  small  bands  of 
men  who  wore  their  shirts  outside  their  coats  (hence 
Whiteboys)  roamed  through  the  country  threatening 
the  obnoxious  landowners,  sometimes  beating  and 
cruelly  injuring  them.  This  was  the  beginning  of  the 
peasant  revolts.  In  the  North  a  serious  agrarian  war 
was  also  being  waged.  Lord  Donegal,  the  descendant 
of  that  Chichester  who  by  fraud  had  secured  his  big 

183 


The  Story  of  the  Irish  Nation 

estates,  was  declining  to  renew  leases  except  at  a  heavy 
premium.  Other  landlords  were  driving  their  tenants 
to  work  on  the  roads.  The  Oakboys  (1761-62)  and 
Hearts-of-Steel  Boys  (1771)  were  Presbyterians  who 
would  not  stand  forced  labor,  or  eviction  as  the  result 
of  resisting  fines.  In  the  end  the  Ulster  Land  War 
was  won  by  the  tenants,  after  much  violence,  cattle- 
maiming,  tithe-refusing,  and  general  insubordination. 
But  during  this  period,  North  and  South,  a  steady 
emigration  took  place  to  the  American  colonies.  The 
Southern  emigration  was  the  greater  of  the  two.  More 
than  one-third  of  Washington's  army  was  composed 
of  Irishmen.  The  records  exhibit  thousands  of  Ulster 
Presbyterian  names  and  thousands  of  Catholic  Irish- 
men. Both  classes  had  left  Ireland  for  about  the  same 
reason,  and  for  this  good  reason  enlisted  in  force  to 
fight  against  the  English  in  the  War  of  Independence. 


The  War  of  Independence  made  a  profound  impres- 
sion in  Ireland.  A  genial  corruptionist  named  Lord 
Harcourt  had  managed,  after  a  long  campaign,  to  get 
the  "patriot"  Henry  Flood  to  take  a  job  at  £3500  a 
year;  and  Flood's  secession  made  it  possible  for  the 
Government  to  win  a  favorable,  anti-American  vote  in 

184 


The  Abyss 

the  Anglo-Irish  parliament.  But  Chatham's  phrase 
expressed  the  Irish  feeling:  "Ireland  is  with  America  to 
a  man."  "All  Ireland  is  America-mad,'*  said  Horace 
Walpole.  The  main  political  advantage  to  Anglo- 
Ireland,  however,  came  from  the  fact  that  America, 
in  order  to  beat  England,  had  appealed  successfully  to 
England's  most  dangerous  enemy,  France. 

By  years  of  insistence  on  the  popery  of  France, 
England  had  made  of  France  the  greatest  bogy  and 
bugbear  in  the  world.  Louis  XIV,  in  addition,  had 
shown  the  evil  possibilities  of  French  militarism.  The 
Anglo-Irish,  genuinely  alarmed  at  the  fact  that  there 
were  no  soldiers  in  Ireland,  were  glad  to  seize  the  oppor- 
tunity to  arm  in  self-defense.  It  was  impossible  to 
get  recruits  in  Ireland  to  fight  the  American  colonies, 
but  the  Irish  quickly  raised  40,000  volunteers  to  defend 
their  coasts  from  the  invader.  Having  done  so,  they 
were  in  a  somewhat  better  position  to  reason  with  the 
"mother-country." 

The  temper  of  Anglo-Ireland  had  not  been  improved 
by  embargoes  on  export,  to  suit  certain  enterprising 
English  hucksters;  the  victory  of  the  Americans  at 
Saratoga  had  additional  stimulating  value.  And,  with 
volunteers  in  arms,  Grattan  did  all  in  his  power  to  unite 
the  Anglo-Irish  and  the  native  Irish. 

185 


The  Story  of  the  Irish  Nation 

The  feebleness  of  the  British  parliament  in  meeting 
this  situation  was  combined  with  an  executive's  pri- 
vately bewailing  the  lack  of  a  secret-service  fund. 
Concessions  were  rushed  to  Anglo-Ireland  and  to  native 
Ireland,  in  the  hope  of  averting  a  declaration  of  inde- 
pendence. 

Carlisle,  the  lord  lieutenant,  informally  told  the 
English  Government  that  the  Irish  could  no  longer 
be  bamboozled.  "It  is  beyond  a  doubt,"  he  said,  "that 
the  practicability  of  governing  Ireland  by  English  laws 
is  become  utterly  visionary.  It  is  with  me  equally  be- 
yond a  doubt  that  Ireland  may  be  well  and  happily 
governed  by  her  own  laws.  It  is,  however,  by  no  means 
so  clear  that  if  the  present  moment  is  neglected  this 
country  will  not  be  driven  into  a  state  of  confusion, 
the  end  of  which  no  man  can  foresee  or  limit." 

The  Volunteers  did  not  stand  inactive.  In  1779 
they  had  demanded  free  trade.  At  the  foot  of  King 
William's  statue  in  Dublin,  opposite  the  houses  of 
parliament,  they  had  placarded  two  cannon,  "Free 
Trade  or  This."  In  1781,  with  free  trade  conceded, 
they  assembled  in  Ulster.  They  now  numbered  80,000 
men  in  arms.  Early  in  1782  they  held  a  convention 
at  Dungannon  under  Lord  Charlemont  to  formulate  a 
political  program.  They  insisted  on  the  independence 

186 


The  Abyss 

of  the  king,  lords,  and  commons  of  Ireland.  They 
passed  two  resolutions  drafted  by  Grattan  which  re- 
vealed the  great  distance  they  had  traveled  toward 
nationalism.  "We  hold  the  right  of  private  judgment 
in  matters  of  religion  to  be  equally  sacred  in  others  as 
in  ourselves ;  that  as  men,  as  Irishmen,  as  Christians, 
and  as  Protestants,  we  rejoice  in  the  relaxation  of  the 
penal  laws  against  our  Roman  Catholic  fellow-subjects, 
and  that  we  conceive  the  measure  to  be  fraught  with 
the  happiest  consequences  to  the  union  and  prosperity 
of  the  inhabitants  of  Ireland." 

Here  was  an  expression  of  public  opinion  which  even 
a  privately-owned  parliament  could  not  ignore.  "We 
know  our  duty  to  our  sovereign,  and  are  loyal;  we 
know  our  duty  to  ourselves,  and  are  resolved  to  be 
free."  This  moderation  of  the  Volunteers,  plus  the  pro- 
posed repeal  of  most  of  the  penal  laws,  created  an 
irresistible  mood  in  Ireland.  Lord  Portland,  the  new 
viceroy,  declared  that  it  was  no  longer  a  question  of 
the  aroused  parliament  of  Ireland.  It  was  "the  whole 
of  this  country."  Fox  insisted  that  there  was  only 
one  thing  to  do :  "to  meet  Ireland  on  her  own  terms  and 
give  her  everything  she  wanted  in  the  way  in  which  she 
seemed  to  wish  for  it."  On  January  22,  1783,  Ireland 
— that  is,  colonial  Ireland — enacted  its  perfect  auton- 

187 


The  Story  of  the  Irish  Nation 

omy,  "hereby  declared  to  be  established  and  ascertained 
forever,  and  shall  at  no  time  hereafter  be  questioned 
or  Questionable."  After  this  achievement,  but  before 
the  parliament  was  reformed,  the  Volunteers  ceased  to 
have  influence. 

"Ireland  is  a  nation,"  exulted  Grattan  in  full  emo- 
tion. "In  that  character  I  hail  her,  and  bowing  in 
her  august  presence,  I  say,  "Esto  perpetual" 

The  "perpetua"  parliament  lasted  about  seventeen 
years. 


188 


CHAPTER  VIII 

THE    ANGLO-IRISH    PARLIAMENT 
1 

WE  now  enter  on  a  drama  with  four  main  con- 
flicting personages :  the  "English  interest,"  the 
Anglo-Irish  interest,  the  submerged  native  Irish,  and 
the  suppressed  dissenters  in  Northeast  Ulster. 

The  drama  falls  into  three  acts.  From  1782  to 
the  French  Revolution  there  was  no  serious  social  con- 
flict inside  Ireland.  The  native  Irish  made  no  stir, 
neither  did  the  dissenters.  The  chief  struggle  was 
that  of  the  Anglo-Irish  parliament  to  overcome  Eng- 
lish jealousy  and  achieve  commercial  emancipation. 
But  a  great  change  in  the  mind  and  soul  of  Ireland 
took  place  with  the  French  Revolution.  From  1791 
to  1798  the  drama  became  political,  with  the  native 
Irish  returning  to  the  stage  under  the  leadership  of 
Protestant  radicals  and  Presbyterian  republicans. 
Against  these  radicals  and  republicans,  with  the  Catho- 
lic masses  in  the  rear,  stood  the  "independent"  parlia- 

189 


The  Story  of  the  Irish  Nation 

ment  and  the  English  government.  At  first  the  Gov- 
ernment inclined  to  temporize.  It  planned  to  emanci- 
pate the  Catholics.  But  with  the  aggressiveness  of  the 
radicals  and  republicans  it  soon  changed  its  tactics. 
The  radicals  were  disloyal.  They  desired  French  in- 
tervention. And  gradually  their  society,  the  United 
Irishmen,  became  a  revolutionary  body,  with  the  plan 
of  establishing  an  Irish  republic.  It  was  this  program, 
and  the  danger  that  it  threatened  to  British  imperial- 
ism so  long  as  the  native  Irish  had  to  be  submerged, 
that  decided  Pitt  to  bring  about  the  union  of  the  Brit- 
ish  and  Anglo-Irish  parliaments. 

The  second  act  was  mainly  occupied  with  leading  up 
to  this  union,  in  spite  of  the  wishes  of  the  Anglo-Irish. 
A  great  help  in  this  direction  was  the  revival  of  social 
and  religious  antagonism  in  Northeast  Ulster.  The 
educated  Presbyterian  was,  as  a  rule,  a  republican,  and 
desirous  of  a  united  Ireland.  But  in  the  rural  districts 
there  was  latent  rivalry  and  hostility  among  Catholics 
and  Presbyterians,  and  out  of  this  came  the  Defenders 
and  the  Orangemen.  The  Orangemen  gave  efficient  aid 
to  British  imperial  policy.  When  the  United  Irishmen 
had  extended  their  organization,  the  Government  pro- 
voked a  leaderless  rebellion,  and  then  turned  the  Orange 
militia  loose  on  the  Southern  peasantry.  The  fright- 

190 


The  Anglo-Irish  Parliament 

fulness  was  so  great  that  the  viceroy  and  the  military 
commanders  sickened  at  it,  but  it  paved  the  way  for 
the  short  third  act  in  this  chapter  of  history:  the  "in- 
dependent" parliament  was  destroyed. 


The  "independent"  parliament  began,  however,  with- 
out any  apprehension  of  English  treachery.  A  feeling 
of  intense  gratitude  to  England  pervaded  it.  One  of 
its  first  acts  was  to  vote  £100,000  to  the  navy,  and  a 
contribution  of  20,000  men.  The  fact  that  these  naval 
recruits  were  sometimes  countrymen  knocked  down  and 
lashed  and  dragged  on  board  the  ships  of  his  Majesty's 
fleet  did  not  lessen  the  surging  loyalty  which  filled  the 
breasts  of  Grattan  and  his  friends.  These  statesmen 
gloried,  to  tell  the  truth,  in  the  strange  sensation  of 
legislative  freedom.  And  because  they  felt  free  they 
felt  generous,  especially  to  the  country  which  had 
freed  them. 

One  of  the  first  results  of  this  emotion  was  a  body 
of  the  most  amiable  and  enlightened  municipal  legisla- 
tion. To  make  Dublin  into  a  handsome  capital,  the 
second  city  of  the  empire,  was  the  ambition  of  the 
young  parliament,  and  such  public  buildings  as  the 
custom-house  and  the  viceregal  lodge  (of  which  the 

191 


The  Story  of  the  Irish  Nation 

White  House  is  a  copy)  were  promptly  undertaken. 
Public  baths  were  opened,  and  charming  town-houses 
were  planned  by  the  lords  and  the  commons.  The 
aristocratic  Dublin  of  this  period  was  lifted  into  being 
on  a  rising  tide  of  hope  and  prosperity,  and  the  reced- 
ing waves  have  left  to  Dublin  a  remarkable  number  of 
fine  Georgian  establishments. 

In  this  expansiveness  a  few  important  facts  were 
allowed  to  lurk  in  the  shade.  The  first  of  these  was 
the  exact  nature  of  Ireland's  "independence."  All 
that  the  Anglo-Irish  parliament  had  gained,  in  fact, 
was  the  right  to  frame  its  own  bills.  In  England's 
hands  it  had  left  the  whole  executive  apparatus.  Thus 
the  viceroy  and  the  chief  secretary  were  responsible 
not  to  Dublin  but  to  London.  The  appointees  of  the 
Government  all  through  the  country  were  English  ap- 
pointees. The  office-holders  looked  to  England;  so  did 
the  office-seekers.  The  bishoprics  and  good  livings 
went  by  the  favor  of  England.  The  house  of  lords 
was,  in  essence,  England's  creature.  The  English  war 
office  controlled  the  Irish  army.  Dublin  Castle,  in 
short,  had  not  been  transferred  to  the  Anglo-Irish 
Ascendancy  but  remained  the  stronghold  of  English 
authority  in  Ireland. 

This  was  one  structural  oddity  of  Ireland's  "inde- 
192 


The  Anglo-Irish  Parliament 

pendence."  Another,  of  course,  was  the  fact  that  the 
"nation"  had,  by  the  ingenuity  of  English  rhetoric, 
come  to  consist  of  the  Anglo-Irish  minority,  possibly  a 
fifth  of  the  people.  One-tenth  of  the  people,  the  Ulster 
Presbyterians,  were  still  unpopular  outsiders,  while 
seven-tenths  of  the  people,  the  native  Irish,  did  not 
politically  exist. 

The  supreme  one-fifth,  however,  could  now  dispense 
with  the  odium  of  brute  force.  England-in-Ireland  be- 
came the  Nation.  The  great  achievement  of  rule  by 
public  opinion,  as  the  English  conceived  it,  did  not  con- 
sist in  installing  the  Anglo-Irish  in  Ireland  by  con- 
quest, confiscation,  and  legal  tyranny.  It  consisted 
rather  in  the  quiet  art  by  which  this  Anglo-Irish  party 
of  force  and  theft  and  fraud  and  deceit  was,  without 
giving  restitution,  turned  around  into  the  dignified 
and  of  course  "salutary"  custodian  of  law  and  order. 
Within  150  years  the  native  Irish  had  been  reduced 
from  their  dominance  in  property  and  position  to  a 
state  of  servitude.  In  this  servitude  they  sometimes 
showed  a  restless,  reprehensible  spirit.  The  wicked 
Irish,  as  solemn  legalists  and  solemn  historians  saw 
them,  had  not  that  respect  for  the  Law  which  one  must 
have  before  one  can  be  "entrusted"  with  self-govern- 
ment. If  four-fifths  of  the  people  came  in  conflict  with 

193 


The  Story  of  the  Irish  Nation 

this  one-fifth,  their  real  offense  was  not  their  objection 
to  the  privileges  of  the  fifth.  Heaven  forbid.  It  was 
their  offense  against  the  great  body  of  noble  principle 
on  which  this  fifth  was  solidly  squatting.  The  Anglo- 
Irish  had  pulled  securely  under  them,  and  now  warmly 
held,  all  the  staple  goods  that  were  in  sight.  Here 
they  were  perched  on  these  goods  like  the  chancellor 
on  his  woolsack  in  the  house  of  lords :  the  vulgar, 
greasy,  useful  commodity  of  earthly  possessions  became 
the  base  from  which  the  ethics  of  law  and  order  were 
laid  down.  And  in  due  time  the  world  could  be  trusted 
not  to  see  the  bag  of  wool  on  which  these  ethics  were 
bolstered,  but  only  to  hear  the  deep  inspiring  organ- 
tones  of  Public  Opinion,  the  Reign  of  Law,  the  political 
genius  of  England,  Representative  Government. 


That  this  division  of  power  was  reasonable,  in  the 
Ireland  of  1782,  was  held  to  be  proved  by  the  low 
condition  of  the  native  Irish.  Owing  to  the  bodily  and 
economic  damage  and  consequent  social  damage  which 
had  been  inflicted  on  the  native  Irish  by  the  penal  laws, 
and  their  fixed  place  in  the  community  as  serfs,  it 
seemed  impossible  in  the  current  aristocratic  view  even 
to  hold  with  them  politically.  They  were  politically 

194 


The  Anglo-Irish  Parliament 

beneath  contempt.  It  was  not  until  the  French  Revo- 
lution had  gathered  all  the  fumes  and  furies  of  the  op- 
pressed into  one  terrific  explosion,  blowing  a  hole 
through  the  thickest  of  complacencies  and  showering 
molten  rocks  among  the  Higher  Orders,  that  the  minds 
of  the  higher  orders  were  awakened  in  alarm. 

The  degree  to  which  the  native  Irish  were  actually 
impaired  and  degraded  by  the  seventeenth  and 
eighteenth  centuries  is  important  to  estimate.  One 
interesting  witness  in  America  in  1782,  is  de  Crevecoeur, 
who  wrote  "Letters  from  an  American  Farmer": 

"Out  of  twelve  families  of  emigrants  of  each  country, 
generally  seven  Scotch  will  succeed,  nine  German,  and 
four  Irish.  The  Scotch  are  frugal  and  laborious,  but 
their  wives  cannot  work  so  hard  as  German  women, 
who  on  the  contrary  vie  with  their  husbands,  and  often 
share  with  them  the  severe  toils  of  the  field,  which  they 
understand  better.  They  have  therefore  nothing  to 
struggle  against,  but  the  common  casualties  of  nature. 
The  Irish  do  not  prosper  so  well;  they  love  to  drink 
and  to  quarrel ;  they  are  litigious,  and  soon  take  to  the 
gun,  which  is  the  ruin  of  everything;  they  seem  beside 
to  labor  under  a  greater  degree  of  ignorance  in  hus- 
bandry than  the  others ;  perhaps  it  is  that  their  indus- 
try had  less  scope,  and  was  less  exercised  at  home.  I 

195 


The  Story  of  the  Irish  Nation 

have  heard  many  relate  how  the  land  was  parceled  out 
in  that  kingdom;  their  ancient  conquest  has  been  a 
great  detriment  to  them,  by  oversetting  their  landed 
property.  The  lands  possessed  by  a  few  are  leased 
down  ad  infinitum,  and  the  occupiers  often  pay  five 
guineas  an  acre.  The  poor  are  worse  lodged  there 
than  anywhere  else  in  Europe ;  their  potatoes,  which 
are  easily  raised,  are  perhaps  an  inducement  to  lazi- 
ness :  their  wages  are  too  low,  and  their  whisky  too 
cheap." 

Was  de  Crevecoeur  biased?  One  finds  an  even  more 
painful  and  absolutely  unguarded  witness  to  the  "detri- 
ment of  conquest"  in  Wolfe  Tone,  the  famous  Irishman, 
who  came  to  America  in  1795.  Tone  was  not  en- 
chanted by  the  people  of  Philadelphia.  "They  are  the 
most  disgusting  race,"  he  observes  in  a  private  letter, 
"eaten  up  with  all  the  vice  of  commerce  and  that  vilest 
of  all  pride,  the  pride  of  the  purse.  In  the  country 
parts  of  Pennsylvania  the  farmers  are  extremely  ignor- 
ant and  boorish,  particularly  the  Germans  and  their 
descendants,  who  abound.  There  is  something,  too,  in 
the  Quaker  manners  extremely  unfavorable  to  any- 
thing like  polished  society,  but  of  all  the  people  I  have 
met  here  the  Irish  are  incontestably  the  most  offensive. 
If  you  meet  a  confirmed  blackguard  you  may  be  sure 

196 


The  Anglo-Irish  Parliament 

he  is  Irish.  You  will,  of  course,  observe  I  speak  of 
the  lower  orders.  They  are  as  boorish  and  ignorant 
as  the  Germans,  as  uncivil  and  uncouth  as  the  Quakers, 
and  as  they  have  ten  times  more  animal  spirits  than 
both  they  are  much  more  actively  troublesome.  After 
all,  I  do  not  wonder  at,  nor  am  I  angry  with  them. 
They  are  corrupted  by  their  own  execrable  government 
at  home  and  when  they  land  here  and  find  themselves 
treated  like  human  creatures,  fed  and  clothed,  and 
paid  for  their  labor,  no  longer  flying  from  the  sight  of 
any  fellow  who  is  able  to  purchase  a  velvet  collar  to 
his  coat,  I  do  not  wonder  if  the  heads  of  the  unfortu- 
nate devils  are  turned  with  such  an  unexpected  change 
in  their  fortunes,  and  if  their  new-gotten  liberty  breaks 
out,  as  it  too  often  does,  into  pettiness  and  insolence. 
For  all  this  it  is,  perhaps  scarcely  fair  to  blame  them — 
the  fact  is  certain. 

"In  Jersey,  the  manners  of  the  people  are  extremely 
different;  they  seem  lively  and  disengaged  in  compari- 
son, and  that,  among  others,  was  one  reason  which 
determined  me  to  settle  in  this  State. 

"But  if  the  manners  of  the  Pennsylvanians  be  un- 
pleasant, their  government  is  the  best  under  heaven, 
and  their  country  thrives  accordingly." 

Three  years  later  Wolfe  Tone  was  to  die  for  these 
197 


The  Story  of  the  Irish  Nation 

Irish  people  about  whose  manners  he  was  so  frank. 
That  he  saw  them  as  he  did,  indicates  the  human 
groundwork  of  class  distinction  in  this  epoch.  And 
what  Tone  could  see  in  terms  of  cause  and  effect  the 
Ascendancy  saw  simply  as  an  unchangeable  condition 
which  called  for  and  justified  the  policy  of  ascendancy. 

4 

Hence  the  "independent"  parliament  began  without 
the  least  intention  of  enfranchising  the  Irish  slaves. 

"The  distrust  of  Roman  Catholicism,"  says  James 
Ford  Rhodes  in  his  history  of  the  United  States,  "is  a 
string  that  can  be  artfully  played  upon  in  an  Anglo- 
Saxon  community."  It  was  the  main  string  of  Grat- 
tan's  parliament.  The  Know-Nothing  movement  or 
the  later  Ku-Klux  Klan  movement  of  the  United  States 
expressed  an  acute  but  futile  desire  to  make  govern- 
ment a  Protestant  Anglo-Saxon  monopoly.  Govern- 
ment in  Grattan's  Ireland  was  in  fact  such  a  monopoly. 
"A  Protestant  king  of  Ireland;  a  Protestant  parlia- 
ment ;  a  Protestant  hierarchy ;  Protestant  electors  and 
Government ;  the  benches  of  justice,  the  army  and  the 
revenue,  through  all  their  branches  and  details  Protes- 
tant ;  and  this  system  supported  by  a  connection  with 
the  Protestant  realm  of  England.'*  This  was  the  plat- 

198 


The  Anglo-Irish  Parliament 

form  of  the  corporation  of  Dublin,  which  by  law  was 
exclusively  Protestant.  And  the  "liberal"  attitude,  as 
revealed  by  Henry  Grattan,  was  this:  "I  love  the 
Roman  Catholic ;  I  am  a  friend  to  his  liberty,  but  it  is 
only  inasmuch  as  his  liberty  is  entirely  consistent  with 
your  ascendancy,  and  an  addition  to  the  strength  and 
freedom  of  the  Protestant  community." 

So  the  Protestant  monopoly  had  to  be  iron-clad.  "I 
love  the  colored  folk,"  but  "only  inasmuch  as  entirely 
consistent  with  white  ascendancy."  What  the  law 
called  the  "common  Popish  enemy"  did  not  appear  to 
have  a  look-in. 

The  Catholic  gentry  did  not  arouse  any  fears  in  the 
monopolists.  By  this  time  they  were  indescribably 
meek.  They  took  a  mouse-like  interest  in  Irish  arche- 
ology. They  hastened  to  assert  their  extreme  respect- 
ability and  unswerving  loyalty  whenever  they  could. 
By  the  connivance  of  a  smooth  grafter  named  Hely 
Hutchinson  they  were  permitted  to  creep  through 
Trinity  College,  Dublin,  and  even  to  receive  degrees. 
Their  Protestant  friends  were  willing  to  hold  property 
for  them  in  many  cases,  and  thus  to  show  that  monop- 
oly is  not  always  monstrous.  But  the  Catholics  of 
"respectability  and  position"  had  no  leadership  in 
them.  Lord  Kenmare  was  afraid  of  his  shadow.  So 

199 


The  Story  of  the  Irish  Nation 

was  Lord  Fingall.  Lord  Dunsany  turned  Protestant 
though  anxious  to  help  his  brethren.  The  eminent 
Father  O'Leary  was  a  secret  pensioner  of  the  crown. 

The  lower  classes  of  the  populace,  as  Lecky  describes 
them,  were  less  spirited  than  the  emigrants  to  America ; 
merely  ignorant,  turbulent,  impoverished.  "The  Cath- 
olic gentry  were  as  sensible  as  the  Protestants  of  the 
utility  of  a  law  which  kept  arms  out  of  the  hands  of 
the  poorest,  the  most  ignorant,  the  most  lawless  and 
riotous  portion  of  the  population." 

But  the  Protestant  Ascendancy  reckoned  without  the 
one  uncontrollable  factor  in  social  affairs — the  world 
circumstance  of  French  Revolution. 

5 

From  1782  to  the  French  Revolution,  as  has  been 
said,  there  was  no  serious  social  conflict  inside  Ireland. 
In  the  breasts  of  radicals  like  Wolfe  Tone  the  con- 
viction was  forming  that  the  "Revolution  of  1782" 
was  worthless.  It  simply  "enabled  Irishmen  to  sell, 
at  a  much  higher  price,  their  honor,  their  integrity, 
and  the  interests  of  their  country ;  it  was  a  revolution 
which,  while  at  one  stroke  it  doubled  the  value  of  every 
borough-monger  in  the  kingdom,  left  three-fourths  of 
our  countrymen  slaves  as  it  found  them,  and  the  gov- 

200 


The  Anglo-Irish  Parliament 

ernment  of  Ireland  in  the  base  and  wicked  and  con- 
temptible hands  who  had  spent  their  lives  in  degrad- 
ing and  plundering  her.  Who  of  the  veteran  .enemies 
of  the  country  lost  his  place  or  his  pension?  Who 
was  called  forth  to  station  or  office  from  the  ranks  of 
the  opposition?  Not  one." 

This  was  the  latent  feeling  out  of  which  the  United 
Irishmen  were  to  arise.  But  in  immediate  view  there 
was  Pitt's  England  with  its  restraints  on  Irish  trade. 
The  statesmen  of  the  Anglo-Irish  parliament  were  con- 
centrated on  nothing  so  much  as  Ireland's  economic 
development,  and  they  fought  with  truly  British  spirit 
for  a  share  in  the  trade  of  the  world.  At  this  distance 
it  may  seem  like  a  pigmy  striving  ag'ainst  a  giant,  but 
that  was  not  the  idea  current  among  British  traders. 
High,  even  prohibitive,  duties  were  imposed  on  Irish 
manufactures  intended  for  England,  while  Ireland  was 
compelled  to  receive  English  manufactures  at  a  low 
tariff.  To  remove  these  restraints  and  discriminations 
by  arranging  a  treaty  was  the  aim  of  the  Anglo-Irish 
parliament.  Pitt  was  not  unwilling  to  make  such  a 
treaty,  provided  he  could  couple  with  it  the  promise 
of  an  Irish  contribution  to  the  empire.  He  did  not 
deny  that  in  the  past  English  policy  "had  been  that  of 
excluding  Ireland  from  the  enjoyment  and  use  of  her 

201 


The  Story  of  the  Irish  Nation 

own  resources;  to  make  that  kingdom  completely  sub- 
servient to  the  opulence  and  interests  of  this  country, 
without  suffering  them  to  share  in  the  bounties  of 
nature,  in  the  industry  of  her  citizens,  or  making  them 
contribute  to  the  general  interests  or  strength  of  the 
empire." 

The  proposed  treaty,  however,  excited  the  most 
lively  opposition  in  the  new  England  of  the  industrial 
revolution.  Ireland  was  believed  to  be  a  place  of  in- 
credibly low  wages,  incredibly  cheap  productiveness, 
incredibly  dangerous  rivalry.  Pitt  yielded  to  the  pro- 
tests of  the  manufacturers  and  the  attacks  of  the 
Whigs.  He  changed  his  whole  policy.  He  sought  to 
compel  Ireland  to  play  the  ape  to  the  British  parlia- 
ment in  return  for  some  minor  advantages.  This  new 
attempt  at  subordination  the  Anglo-Irish  parliament 
shelved.  It  turned  instead  to  home  legislation.  This, 
and  the  feeling  of  national  confidence,  helped  Ireland 
toward  an  industrial  revival.  "The  woolen  manufac- 
ture showed  some  signs  of  reattaining  its  old  pros- 
perity; the  cotton  manufacture  grew  at  a  very  rapid 
pace,  and  in  a  few  years  attained  considerable  dimen- 
sions ;  the  progress  of  the  linen  manufacture  was  unin- 
terrupted; the  brewing  industry  was  reestablished  in 
Ireland,  without,  however,  in  any  way  injuring  its 

202 


The  Anglo-Irish  Parliament 

flourishing-  rivals,  the  distilleries;  the  glass  manufac- 
ture became  a  serious  rival  to  that  of  England;  and, 
in  spite  of  the  greatly  increased  export  of  corn,  the 
provision  trade  did  not  suffer,  but,  on  the  contrary, 
continued  to  expand."  In  his  excellent  "Economic 
History"  Mr.  O'Brien  further  shows  that  rents  went 
up,  wages  increased,  and  the  population  rose  from 
about  3,000,000  in  1782  to  almost  5,000,000  in  1800. 

But  this  manifestation  of  Irish  strength,  with  the 
French  menace,  was  the  very  thing  to  alarm  Britain. 
It  was  decided  by  Pitt  as  early  as  1792  that  the  sim- 
plest solution  for  Britain  would  be  to  take  away  the 
Anglo-Irish  parliament.  He  could  do  this  all  the  bet- 
ter because  he  believed  that  the  Union  would  safeguard 
"the  British  interest." 

Some  concession  to  the  Catholic  majority,  Pitt  be- 
lieved, was  absolutely  necessary.  In  1791  the  plebeian 
elements  had  come  to  dominate  the  Catholic  Committee. 
Under  the  secretaryship  of  Wolfe  Tone,  the  democratic 
program  of  the  French  Revolution  seemed  to  these 
native  Irish  the  most  inspiring  doctrine  in  the  world, 
and  among  the  dissenters  of  Belfast  the  Catholics  found 
their  warmest  supporters. 

The  Anglo-Irish  parliament,  needless  to  say,  was 
not  Jacobin.  It  was  thoroughly  frightened  by  the 

203 


The  Story  of  the  Irish  Nation 


prospect  of  any  "democratic"  advance  in  Ireland.  In 
1792  Pitt  was  of  the  same  mind.  But  believing  he 
could  achieve  the  Union  he  felt  that  the  admission  of 


Theobald  Wolfe  Tone 


the  Catholics  to  a  share  of  suffrage  could  not  then 
be  dangerous.  "The  Protestant  interest,  in  point  of 
power,  property,  and  church  establishment,"  he  said 
in  1792  in  a  private  letter,  "would  be  secure,  because 
the  decided  majority  of  the  Supreme  Legislature  would 

204 


The  Anglo-Irish  Parliament 

necessarily  be  Protestant;  and  the  great  ground  of 
argument  on  the  part  of  the  Catholics  would  be  done 
away;  as  compared  with  the  rest  of  the  empire,  they 
would  be  a  minority." 

There  was,  besides,  the  conservative  formula  for 
Catholics.  As  against  the  Jacobins  he  thought  that 
the  ignorant,  downtrodden  Irish  peasant  would  be  a 
social  bulwark.  George  III  smiled  on  a  delegation  of 
loyal  Catholics.  "In  the  great  struggle  that  had 
broken  out  Catholicism  appeared  the  most  powerful 
moral  influence  opposed  to  the  Revolution." 

It  was  this  sort  of  reasoning  which  led  Pitt's  hench- 
men to  enfranchise  the  Catholic  peasant  in  1793.  So 
long  as  the  peasant  voted  as  his  landlord  dictated 
(which  he  did),  this  enfranchisement  really  meant  noth- 
ing. The  gesture  had  only  one  disadvantage:  Pitt 
could  not  explain  to  the  Anglo-Irish  parliament  how 
little  this  liberalism  meant  without  divulging  his  plan 
as  to  the  Union. 

Not  possessing  the  indispensable  clue  to  Pitt's  be- 
havior, the  Anglo-Irish  resented  enormously  his  con- 
cession to  the  Catholics.  Their  own  policy  was  dif- 
ferent. They  aimed  to  resist  the  democratic  influence 
of  the  French  Revolution,  to  drive  a  wedge  in  between 
the  lower  order  of  Catholics  and  the  Presbyterians  of 

205 


The  Story  of  the  Irish  Nation 

Belfast,  and  to  keep  property  on  top  by  giving  a  place 
in  parliament  to  the  conservative,  propertied  Catholics. 
The  United  Irishmen,  founded  in  Belfast  in  1791, 
were  not  placated  by  Pitt's  concession  to  the  Catholic 
voter.  They  had  a  national  as  well  as  a  democratic 
program,  and  they  began  an  agitation  for  the  uniting 
of  the  dissenters  and  the  Catholics.  Theirs  was,  at 
its  start,  a  natural  secession  of  the  younger  radicals — 
lawyers  and  writers — from  the  non-popular  Anglo- 
Irish  parliament,  and  at  first  their  program  was  a 
broad  civil  and  religious  liberty.  But  with  the  Franco- 
English  war  of  1793  the  leaders — Lord  Edward  Fitz- 
gerald, Arthur  O'Connor,  Thomas  Addis  Emmet,  Oliver 
Bond,  W.  J.  McNevin,  and  above  all  Wolfe  Tone — 
made  up  their  minds  to  follow  America's  example,  in- 
voke French  aid,  declare  war,  and  go  republican. 

6 

This  development  of  policy  was  gradual.  Before  it 
was  mature  Pitt  agreed  that  the  appearance  of  virtue 
was  desirable.  He  sent  an  honest  liberal  to  Ireland 
as  viceroy,  Lord  Fitzwilliam. 

To  Grattan,  who  now  realized  that  the  Catholics 
must  be  placated  and  "emancipated,"  Fitzwilliam's  was 
a  splendid  appointment.  All  the  decent  forces  in 

206 


The  Anglo-Irish  Parliament 

Anglo-Irish  politics  rallied  to  him.  And  above  every- 
thing the  reformers  impressed  on  Fitzwilliam  the  hope- 
less corruption  of  the  parliament  under  Fitzgibbon,  a 
cynical  bully  who  was  Pitt's  lord  chancellor,  and  under 
Fitzgibbon's  brother-in-law,  John  Beresford,  who  was 
the  head  of  the  Tory  machine. 

Poor  Fitzwilliam,  being  honest,  made  up  his  mind 
that  he  could  get  nowhere  unless  he  reformed  parlia- 
ment. He  had  pledged  himself  not  to  touch  the  tru- 
culent Fitzgibbon,  but  he  promptly  removed  John 
Beresford  and  two  of  Beresford's  chief  henchmen  and 
spies. 

This  created  a  remarkable  situation.  So  long  as 
the  parliament  was  thoroughly  corrupt,  the  inclusion 
of  a  few  Lord  Kenmares  and  Fingalls  made  no  real 
difference.  But  if  Catholic  emancipation  and  parlia- 
mentary reform  both  occurred,  Pitt's  check-and-bal- 
ance  policy  was  sure  to  miscarry.  The  recall  of  Fitz- 
william was  the  only  move  left  open  to  Pitt. 

Fitzwilliam's  disastrous  indiscretion  is  still  the  theme 
of  British  politicians.  Lord  Rosebery  records  that 
Fitzwilliam  dismissed  Beresford,  "one  of  Pitt's  con- 
fidential agents."  "He  made  the  unfortunate  asser- 
tion that  Beresford  had  been  guilty  of  malversation" — 
in  other  words,  was  a  crook.  Lord  Rosebery  tells  us 

207 


The  Story  of  the  Irish  Nation 

that  Fitzwilliam  "seems  to  have  been  a  man  of  generous 
sympathies  and  honest  enthusiasm ;  but  not  less  wrong- 
headed  than  headstrong;  absolutely  devoid  of  judg- 
ment, reticence,  and  tact." 

In  other  words,  he  shared  Edmund  Burke's  "living 
loathing  of  the  Irish  system  of  corruption."  He  was 
one  British  viceroy  who  took  his  honor  seriously.  He 
ventured  to  interfere  with  the  perfect  machinery  which 
existed  to  cancel  reform. 

Fitzwilliam's  recall  ended  a  complicated  intrigue.  It 
was  the  occasion  of  great  popular  lament  in  Ireland. 
It  decided  Pitt  to  abandon  his  connivance  at  Catholic 
emancipation.  In  1791  it  had  been  clear  to  the  United 
Irishmen  that  "the  chief  support  of  the  borough  in- 
fluence in  Ireland  was  the  weight  of  English  influence." 
This  was  now  proved  by  the  Anglo-Irish  rejection  of 
Catholic  emancipation  by  155  to  84.  Pitt's  spokes- 
men reversed  their  stand.  They  were  now  vigorously 
anti-Catholic.  The  bigotry  of  George  III  was  sud- 
denly remembered.  "The  exclusion  of  Catholics  from 
Parliament  and  the  State,"  declared  the  chief  secre- 
tary, "is  necessary  for  the  Crown  and  the  Connection." 

"About  1795,"  Lecky  mildly  notes,  "the  persistent 
and  successful  opposition  of  the  Government  to  reform 

208 


The  Anglo-Irish  Parliament 

made  the  United  Irishmen  for  the  first  time  disloyal." 
The  republicanism  of  Belfast  was  now  a  pronounced 
factor  in  Irish  politics.  The  Government  threw  a  sop 
to  the  Catholic  Church  by  endowing  Maynooth,  the 
seminary  for  priests.  But  the  English  Government 
did  not  disguise  from  itself  the  large  task  it  had  in 
hand.  That  task  was  to  strengthen  the  Government 
machine  inside  parliament,  to  deprive  Grattan's  pious 
liberalism  of  all  effectiveness,  to  multiply  spies,  detec- 
tives, and  agents  provocateurs,  to  build  up  a  big  army 
and  a  big  militia,  to  inflame  religious  prejudice  where- 
ever  possible,  and  to  provoke  and  quell  a  rebellion. 
After  the  rebellion,  which  was  in  everybody's  mind,  it 
(rould  be  unnecessary  to  force  the  Anglo-Irish  parlia- 
ment into  a  union  at  the  point  of  the  sword.  It  would 
be  sufficient  to  spend  several  million  pounds  and  lavish 
a  few  dozen  peerages. 

7 

Against  this  policy  there  was  only  the  agility  and 
daring  of  the  United  Irishmen.  When  Wolfe  Tone 
was  allowed  to  leave  the  country  in  1795,  he  found 
Belfast  full  of  the  most  warm-hearted  and  patriotic 
Irishmen.  Before  he  sailed  from  Belfast  he  and  Neil- 

209 


The  Story  of  the  Irish  Nation 

son  and  Russell  and  McCracken  and  Simms  met  on  a 
hill  in  the  neighborhood  and  "took  a  solemn  obligation 
never  to  desist  in  our  efforts  until  we  have  subverted 
the  authority  of  England  over  our  country  and  as- 
serted our  independence." 

Tone  had  traveled  the  full  distance  along  the  road 
on  which  Swift  and  his  fellows  had  only  set  their  foot. 
He  was,  without  an  illusion,  the  advocate  of  the  native 
Irish.  Born  in  Dublin  the  same  year  as  Lord  Edward 
Fitzgerald,  1763,  he  was  the  son  of  a  farmer-coach- 
maker  of  English  stock  who  lived  in  Kildare.  His 
mother's  name  was  Lamport.  Wolfe  Tone,  Theobald 
Wolfe  Tone  in  full,  was  a  man  of  the  most  blithe  and 
spirited  temperament,  of  deep  political  sense,  resource, 
and  courage.  He  was  the  most  notable  Irishman  of 
his  time.  His  autobiography  is  one  of  the  most  fas- 
cinating autobiographies  in  the  English  language,  dis- 
tinguished as  much  by  its  color  and  gaiety  as  by  its 
thrilling  theme.  From  his  first  negotiations  with  citi- 
zen Adet,  the  French  minister  in  Philadelphia,  to  his 
negotiations  with  the  French  Government  in  1796,  he 
had  nothing  to  rely  on  except  his  own  initiative,  con- 
fidence, and  address.  Monroe,  then  American  minister 
to  France,  received  him  warmly.  He  advised  him  not 
to  bother  with  "subalterns."  He  sent  him  straight  to 

210 


The  Anglo-Irish  Parliament 

Carnot,   and   Tone   undertook   the   audacious   task   of 
procuring  an  army  to  free  Ireland. 

After  immense  effort  an  expedition  under  Lazare 
Hoche  sailed  from  Brest  December  15,  1796,  Tone  ac- 
companying it  as  a  French  adjutant-general. 

The  expedition  was  under  the  orders  of  Admiral 
Bouvet  while  at  sea.  It  had  taken  Hoche  several 
months  to  get  the  forty-three  ships  he  needed  for 
15,000  men,  artillery,  and  munitions  for  thousands  of 
Irishmen.  In  the  fogs  that  enveloped  the  sea  after 
leaving  Brest  the  force  split  into  three  divisions. 
Hoche's  ship  never  reached  Bantry,  but  thirty-five 
ships  of  the  expedition  came  within  sight  of  Bantry 
Bay.  A  tremendous  wind,  blowing  unceasingly  from 
December  20  to  27,  made  it  difficult  for  them  to  land, 
though  a  more  daring  commander  than  Grouchy  could 
not  have  been  found.  Of  the  forty-three  ships  thirty- 
five  returned  safely,  five  were  wrecked,  and  six  were 
captured  by  the  English.  The  English  fleet  never 
came  out  to  engage  this  expedition,  but  Bouvet  was 
dismissed  by  the  French  for  sailing  home  too  soon. 
Grouchy,  who  took  the  command  in  the  absence  of 
Hoche,  was  investigated  for  not  making  a  landing,  but 
the  investigation  cleared  him.  Wolfe  Tone  himself 
said  "the  winds  ruined  us." 

211 


The  Story  of  the  Irish  Nation 

8 

While  Tone  remained  in  France  to  renew  his  efforts, 
the  situation  in  Ireland  became  more  strained.  For 
some  time  in  Armagh  and  elsewhere  in  the  North  there 
had  been  friction  between  the  Presbyterian  and  Catho- 
lic rural  workers.  In  Armagh,  where  the  Catholics 
were  in  the  minority,  they  called  themselves  Defenders 
and  the  aggressors  called  themselves  Peep-o'-day  Boys. 
A  clash  between  these  two  bodies  in  September,  1795, 
occurred  at  a  place  called  the  Diamond.  Though  said 
to  be  the  aggressors,  the  Catholics  had  more  than 
twenty  of  their  number  killed.  After  their  victory 
that  evening  the  non-Catholics  formed  themselves  into 
a  new  body  called  Orangemen,  after  William  of  Orange, 
"the  conqueror  of  the  Catholics." 

These  Orangemen  went  on  the  war-path.  "A  ter- 
rible persecution  of  Catholics,"  Lecky  declares,  "im- 
mediately followed.  The  animosities  between  the  lower 
orders  of  the  two  religions,  which  had  long  been  little 
bridled,  burst  out  afresh,  and  after  the  battle  of  the 
Diamond  the  Protestant  rabble  of  the  county  of 
Armagh,  and  of  part  of  the  adjoining  counties,  deter- 
mined by  continuous  outrages  to  drive  the  Catholics 
from  the  country.  Their  cabins  were  placarded,  or, 

212 


The  Anglo-Irish  Parliament 

as  it  was  termed,  'papered,*  with  the  words  'To  hell  or 
Connacht,'  and  if  the  occupiers  did  not  at  once  aban- 
don them,  they  were  attacked  at  night  by  an  armed 
mob." 

The  Government  was  soon  being  assured  that  the 
Orangemen  were  full  of  the  "strongest  spirit  of  loy- 
alty." This  spirit  of  loyalty  was  shared  by  many 
local  magistrates,  who  gave  the  Orangemen  a  free 
hand.  And  Dublin  Castle  did  nothing  to  keep  the  out- 
rages from  flourishing.  A  revival  of  bigotry  and 
hatred  was  just  the  feeling  to  counteract  that  rap- 
prochement between  Catholics,  Protestants,  and  Pres- 
byterians for  which  the  United  Irishmen  were  striving. 
"Loyalists"  of  the  Orange  type  did  not  wait  long  to 
make  this  plain,  and  there  were  plenty  of  Government 
officials  to  listen  to  them.  The  Government,  Grattan 
declared  repeatedly  in  parliament,  had  one  law  for 
the  Defenders,  another  for  the  Orangemen.  He  asked 
pointedly  how  it  happened  that  with  40,000  soldiers 
and  summary  laws,  they  could  not  reduce  Armagh  to 
order.  "I  cannot  but  think,"  he  stated  flatly,  "the 
audacity  of  the  mob  arose  from  a  confidence  in  the 
connivance  of  Government.  Under  an  administration 
sent  here  to  defeat  a  Catholic  Bill,  a  Protestant  mob 
very  naturally  conceives  itself  a  part  of  the  state." 

213 


The  Story  of  the  Irish  Nation 

In  one  sense  this  extended  and  extreme  persecution  of 
the  Catholics  helped  the  United  Irishmen.  It  turned 
thousands  of  "Defenders,"  North  and  South,  into  their 
order.  The  Catholic  militia,  according  to  the  Gov- 
ernment, could  no  longer  be  depended  on.  But  the 
very  essence  of  the  United  Irishman  policy  was  the 
transcending  of  religious  division.  "To  subvert  the 
tyranny  of  our  execrable  Government,"  said  Tone,  "to 
break  the  connection  with  England,  the  never-failing 
source  of  our  political  evils,  and  to  assert  the  inde- 
pendence of  my  country — these  were  my  objects.  To 
unite  the  whole  people  of  Ireland,  to  abolish  the  mem- 
ory of  our  past  dissensions,  and  to  substitute  the  com- 
mon name  of  Irishmen  in  place  of  the  denomination  of 
Protestant,  Catholic,  and  dissenter — these  were  my 
means."  The  enormous  enrolment  of  Catholics,  pre- 
viously apathetic,  was  loudly  welcomed;  but  even 
though  the  Defenders  were  excommunicated  by  their 
church,  their  keenest  emotion  was  not  that  disciplined 
policy  which  inspired  the  United  men. 

From  their  spies  in  the  ranks  of  the  United  Irish- 
men— Leonard  McNally  in  particular — and  from  the 
proprietor  of  the  "Freeman's  Journal,"  Francis  Hig- 
gins,  the  Government  judged  the  time  had  come  to 
enroll  a  loyal  yeomanry.  This  yeomanry  was,  in  effect, 

214 


The  Anglo-Irish  Parliament 

the  deliberate  enrolment  of  Orangemen  against  Catho- 
lic. And  this  enlistment  of  Orange  enthusiasts  proved 
to  be  exceedingly  efficacious,  once  the  policy  of  disarm- 
ing and  coercing  the  country  was  accepted. 


So  began  the  campaign  which  preceded  and  pro- 
duced the  actual  rising  of  1798. 

Georg  Brandes,  the  Danish  man  of  letters,  accu- 
rately sums  up  the  action  of  the  yeomanry  in  his 
essay  on  Robert  Emmet.  "The  Government  formed  a 
force  of  Protestant  constabulary,  37,000  strong. 
These  troops  were  permitted,  under  the  pretense  of 
searching  for  concealed  weapons,  to  capture,  torture, 
and  put  to  death  any  unfortunate  person  whom  an 
enemy,  or  any  ruffian  whatever,  chose  to  accuse  of 
suspicious  behavior.  Hundreds  of  unoffending  people, 
who  were  guilty  of  no  other  offense  than  professing 
the  creed  of  their  fathers,  were  flogged  until  they  were 
insensible,  or  made  to  stand  upon  one  foot  on  a  pointed 
stake,  or  were  half  hanged,  or  had  the  scalp  torn  from 
their  heads  by  a  pitched  cap.  Militia  and  yeomanry, 
as  well  as  the  regular  troops,  were  billeted  in  private 
houses ;  and  this  billet  appears  to  have  been  construed 

215 


The  Story  of  the  Irish  Nation 

as  an  unlimited  license  for  robbery,  devastation,  rav- 
ishment, and  in  case  of  resistance,  murder.  It  was 
boasted  by  officers  of  rank  that  within  certain  large 
districts  no  home  had  been  left  undefiled ;  and  upon  its 
being  remarked  that  the  sex  must  have  been  very  com- 
plying, the  reply  was  that  'the  bayonet  removed  all 
squeamishness.' ' 

Grattan  had  foreseen  the  violence  of  the  Govern- 
ment. He  made  one  final  attack  in  parliament,  pointed 
out  that  more  than  200  of  the  300  members  were  in 
bond,  reminded  the  Government  that  its  own  rottenness 
had  fomented  the  United  Irishmen,  and  refreshed  its 
memory  concerning  the  American  war.  "Suppose  you 
succeed,  what  is  your  success?  A  military  government ! 
A  perfect  despotism !  .  .  .  a  Union !  But  what  may  be 
the  ultimate  consequence  of  such  a  victory?  A  separa- 
tion !"  He  made  his  last  appeal,  won  30  votes  out  of 
147,  and  walked  out  of  the  parliament  with  his  fol- 
lowers. 

The  Government  expected  a  French  invasion  as  well 
as  a  rising.  Hence  the  Government  policy  of  terror- 
ism. Tone  had  been  negotiating  with  the  Dutch  before 
their  defeat  at  the  Battle  of  Camperdown.  Now,  since 
Hoche  had  died  of  consumption,  he  was  dealing  with 
the  lukewarm  Bonaparte.  Through  McNally  and  other 

216 


The  Anglo-Irish  Parliament 

agents  Dublin  Castle  was  aware  that  Lord  Edward 
Fitzgerald  and  Arthur  O'Connor  were  simply  biding 
their  time.  In  this  period  of  apprehension  and  alarm  a 
new  commander-in-chief  came  to  Ireland,  Sir  Ralph 
Abercromby,  a  Scot  of  high  reputation.  He  found  the 
loyalists  semi-hysterical  and  the  military  demoralized. 
He  determined,  in  Lecky's  words,  "to  put  a  stop  to 
the  scandalous  outrages  which  were  constantly  occur- 
ring, if  not  under  the  direct  prompting,  at  least  with 
the  tacit  connivance  of  Government  officials."  The 
burning  of  houses  in  reprisal  was  one  of  the  practices 
which  Abercromby  had  to  condemn.  In  February, 
1798,  he  announced  without  disguise  that  the  army 
was  "in  a  state  of  licentiousness  which  must  render  it 
formidable  to  every  one  but  the  enemy."  This  open 
statement  created  an  uproar,  and  in  private  he  told  his 
own  relations  that  "within  these  twelve  months  every 
crime,  every  cruelty  that  could  be  committed  by  Cos- 
sacks or  Calmucks  has  been  transacted  here.  .  .  . 
Houses  have  been  burned,  men  murdered,  others  half 
hanged."  Abercromby  resigned,  and  "took  away  the 
last  faint  chance  of  averting  a  rebellion."  A  general 
named  Lake,  with  an  exceedingly  bad  record,  was  given 
Abercromby's  place  and  within  a  month  had  driven 
the  people  to  revolt. 

217 


The  Story  of  the  Irish  Nation 

10 

The  United  Irishmen  planned  and  desired  an  insur- 
rection, to  be  launched  May  23.  They  claimed  to  have 
279,896  men  enlisted  and  armed,  and  Lord  Edward 
Fitzgerald  was  to  act  as  commander-in-chief.  The 
actual  plans  were  not  in  the  Government's  hands,  how- 
ever, until  Thomas  Reynolds,  one  of  the  inner  circle, 
turned  informer  and  enablefl  the  Government  to  arrest 
fifteen  of  the  leaders  in  March.  Thomas  Addis  Emmet, 
Sweetman,  Jackson,  and  W.  J.  McNevin,  were  arrested 
at  the  same  time.  It  was  following  these  arrests  that 
"martial  law  and  free  quarters"  were  proclaimed,  lead- 
ing to  the  incidents  narrated  by  Brandes  and  pro- 
voking the  country  to  a  leaderless  rising. 

The  Tyrone  Militia,  the  North  Cork  Militia,  the 
Welsh  and  two  Hessian  regiments  showed  what  Orange- 
men and  aliens  could  do  among  the  popish  enemy. 
"More  than  one  victim  died  under  the  lash,"  records 
Lecky,  "and  the  terror  it  produced  was  to  many  even 
worse  than  the  punishment.  Gordon  mentions  a  case 
which  came  under  his  own  notice,  of  a  laboring  man  who 
dropped  dead  through  simple  fear.  Another  case  is  re- 
lated of  a  man  in  Dublin,  who,  maddened  by  the  pain 

218 


The  Anglo-Irish  Parliament 

of  the  pitched  cap,  sprang  into  the  Liffey  and  ended  at 
once  his  sufferings  and  his  life.  In  a  third  case,  which 
occurred  at  Drogheda,  a  man  who  had  undergone  500 
lashes  in  order  to  compel  him  to  reveal  some  concealed 
arms,  fearing  that  his  fortitude  would  be  overcome, 
pretended  that  arms  were  concealed  in  a  particular 
garden,  and  availed  himself  of  the  few  moments  of  free- 
dom which  he  thus  obtained,  to  cut  his  throat.  Flogging 
to  extort  confessions  appears  to  have  been  nowhere 
more  extensively  or  more  successfully  practised  than  in 
Dublin  itself,  under  the  very  eyes  of  the  Government, 
and  under  the  direction  of  men  who  were  closely  con- 
nected with  it." 

During  these  happenings  the  United  Irishmen  had 
suffered  further  betrayals.  Higgins  of  the  "Freeman's 
Journal"  secured  a  £1000  bribe  for  one  Magan,  who 
secured  Lord  Edward's  arrest  in  Thomas  Street  on 
May  17.  He  had  been  "on  the  run"  for  two  months. 
He  was  lying  on  his  bed  when  Major  Swan  and  Captain 
Ryan  came  to  arrest  him.  With  a  dagger  he  fought 
against  these  two  men,  mortally  wounded  Ryan,  and 
himself  received  a  pistol-wound  of  which  he  died  three 
weeks  later.  Lord  Edward  was  described  by  a  French 
agent  who  negotiated  with  him  as  a  man  incapable  of 

219 


The  Story  of  the  Irish  Nation 

falsehood  or  perfidy,  frank,  energetic,  and  likely  to 
be  a  useful  and  devoted  instrument,  but  "with  no  ex- 
perience or  extraordinary  talent."  He  was  thirty-five 


Lord  Edward  Fitzgerald 


years  old  at  the  time  of  his  death,  the  last  of  the 
Geraldines  to  risk  his  whole  being  and  fortune  in 
despair  of  the  methods  of  the  English  in  Ireland. 

An  army  officer  Armstrong,  urged  by  Lord  Castle- 
reagh  not  to  indulge  "in  delicate  scruples,"  dined  in- 

220 


The  Anglo-Irish  Parliament 

timately  with  the  family  of  two  men  named  Sheares, 
sons  of  a  Cork  banker.  Armstrong  obtained  the  ma- 
terial for  a  state  trial.  John  Sheares  and  his  brother 
Henry  were  defended  by  John  Philpot  Curran.  They 
were  found  guilty  in  seventeen  minutes.  Lecky  asserts 
that  John  Sheares  was  "a  man  of  ability  and  great 
energy,  a  reckless  and  dangerous  fanatic."  On  July 
4,  1798,  the  day  he  was  condemned,  he  denied  with 
dignity  and  simplicity  the  main  accusation  which 
Lecky's  history  complacently  repeats.  He  was  accused 
of  urging  that  no  quarter  be  given  to  the  enemy.  "If 
any  acquaintance  of  mine  can  believe  that  I  could 
utter  a  recommendation  of  giving  no  quarter  to  a 
yielding  and  unoffending  foe,  it  is  not  the  death  I  am 
about  to  suffer  I  deserve:  no  punishment  could  be 
adequate  to  such  a  crime."  He  turned  from  this  to 
urge  the  court  to  give  his  brother  time  to  arrange  his 
affairs.  "In  short,  my  lords,  to  spare  your  feelings 
and  my  own,  I  do  not  pray  that  I  should  not  die,"  but 
that  the  brother  be  granted  a  short  respite.  The 
respite  was  not  granted  until  next  day,  when  the  man 
who  brought  it  arrived  too  late.  James  Sheares  had 
already  been  hanged  before  the  mob  in  Green  Street, 
and  his  head  cut  off,  and  held  up  to  the  mob  by  the 
hangman,  crying,  "Behold  the  head  of  a  traitor." 

221 


The  Story  of  the  Irish  Nation 

11 

The  concerted  rising  was  destroyed  by  the  arrests 
at  the  center,  but  it  broke  out  in  Ulster  and  Leinster 
in  spite  of  everything.  Henry  Joy  McCracken,  a 
spirited  friend  of  Wolfe  Tone's,  led  the  attack  on 
Antrim.  His  force  of  4000  was  repulsed,  he  was 
captured,  tried,  and  hanged  in  Belfast.  His  sister 
walked  with  him  to  the  place  of  execution.  Forty  years 
later  she  said  of  her  beloved  brother  that  she  would 
not  have  had  him  do  otherwise.  Henry  Munroe  in 
Down  was  defeated  at  Ballynahinch,  and  executed  in 
Lisburn.  In  these  Ulster  battles  the  insurgents  were 
mainly  Presbyterian,  led  by  men  of  substance  who  had 
long  been  connected  with  the  United  Irishmen.  In 
Leinster  there  were  scattered  engagements  in  Kildare, 
Carlow,  and  Meath,  and  a  massacre  on  the  Curragh  of 
insurgents  about  to  surrender. 

The  war  in  Wexford  was  not  premeditated.  Lord 
Mountnorris  had  been  busy  securing  oaths  and  protes- 
tations of  allegiance  before  the  arrival  of  the  North 
Cork  Militia.  It  was  their  activities,  especially  the 
burning  of  the  Catholic  chapel  at  Boulavogue,  and 
Father  John  Murphy's  house  and  twenty  farm-houses 
near-by,  which  started  the  rising  in  Wexford. 

222 


The  Anglo-Irish  Parliament 

At  Oulart  Hill  and  Vinegar  Hill  the  country  people 
collected  in  huge  numbers,  aroused  to  extraordinary 


An    Irish    Insurgent 
of    1798 


passion  and  activity  by  the  recent  work  of  the  yeo- 
manry. Father  John  Murphy,  Father  Michael  Mur- 
phy, Father  Philip  Roche,  and  Father  Kearns  led  in 

223 


The  Story  of  the  Irish  Nation 

a  number  of  engagements  which  included  the  capture 
of  Enniscorthy,  Wexford,  Gorey.  At  Vinegar  Hill 
General  Lake  with  15,000  troops  finally  overcame  the 
magnificently  courageous  but  unorganized  bodies  of 
leaderless  and  badly  armed  insurgents. 

"Under  no  military  control,  undisciplined,  and 
practically  unled;  goaded  to  revolt  by  intolerable  bar- 
barity, they  flew  to  arms,  without  preparation,  as  a 
desperate  resource."  So  Dr.  Sigerson  has  summed  up 
1798  in  Wexford.  It  is  admitted  in  General  Lake's 
biography  that  it  was,  unhappily,  the  misconduct  of 
the  militia  and  yeomanry  which  led  to  the  insurrection. 

Cornwallis,  the  viceroy,  was  "frightened  and 
ashamed"  at  "the  numberless  murders  that  are  hourly 
committed  by  our  people  without  any  process  or  ex- 
amination whatever.  The  yeomanry  are  in  the  style 
of  the  Loyalists  in  America,  only  much  more  numerous 
and  powerful,  and  a  thousand  times  more  ferocious. 
These  men  have  saved  the  country,  but  they  now  take 
the  lead  in  rapine  and  murder.  The  Irish  militia, 
with  few  officers,  and  those  chiefly  of  the  worst  kind, 
follow  closely  on  the  heels  of  the  yeomanry  in  murder 
and  every  kind  of  atrocity,  and  the  Fencibles  take  a 
share,  although  much  behindhand  with  the  others.  The 

224 


The  Anglo-Irish  Parliament 

feeble  outrages,  burnings,  and  murders  which  are  still 
committed  by  the  Rebels,  serve  to  keep  up  the  sangui- 
nary disposition  on  our  side;  and  as  long  as  they  fur- 
nish a  pretext  for  our  parties  going  in  quest  of  them, 
I  see  no  prospect  of  amendment. 

"The  conversation  of  the  principal  persons  of  the 
country  all  tend  to  encourage  this  system  of  blood, 
and  the  conversation  even  at  my  table,  where  you  will 
suppose  I  do  all  I  can  to  prevent  it,  always  turns  on 
hanging,  shooting,  burning,  etc.,  etc.,  and  if  a  priest 
has  been  put  to  death  the  greatest  joy  is  expressed  by 
the  whole  company.  So  much  for  Ireland  and  my 
wretched  situation." 

12 

In  August,  1798,  after  the  execution  of  Bond,  Byrne, 
Neilson,  and  others,  and  the  imprisonment  of  Thomas 
Addis  Emmet  and  McNevin,  a  small  French  expedition 
landed  at  Killala  in  Mayo,  under  General  Humbert.  At 
Castlebar  the  crown  troops  that  were  so  ruthless  in 
Wexford  celebrated  their  valor  by  running  away  from 
Humbert  in  a  battle  known  as  the  "Races  of  Castlebar." 
Lord  Cornwallis  with  15,000  men  finally  took  Humbert's 
surrender  at  Longford.  Matthew  Tone  and  Bartholo- 

225 


The  Story  of  the  Irish  Nation 

mew  Teeling,  who  had  come  with  him,  were  executed,  as 
well  as  five  hundred  captured  Irishmen.  The  French 
soldiers  were  treated  as  prisoners  of  war. 

In  September  another  futile  expedition  came  from 
France.  It  comprised  3000  men,  with  Wolfe  Tone  on 
board  the  Hoclie.  At  the  entrance  to  Lough  Swilly, 
October  10,  he  was  urged  by  his  French  associates  to 
leave  in  their  sloop.  He  absolutely  refused.  "Shall  I 
leave  the  French  to  fight  the  battles  of  my  country?" 
he  asked.  A  bitter  naval  battle  took  place  between 
the  battleship  Hoclie  and  four  British  vessels.  For 
six  hours  the  Hoche  fought,  with  Wolfe  Tone  com- 
manding a  battery  and  taking  his  part  "like  a  lion." 

The  Hoche  was  eventually  beaten  and  Tone  was 
one  of  the  prisoners  of  war.  He  was  invited  with  the 
other  French  officers  to  breakfast  with  the  Earl  of 
Cavan.  At  table  he  was  recognized  by  an  old  Trinity 
College  mate,  Sir  George  Hill,  and  by  that  gentleman 
he  was  handed  over  to  the  authorities.  On  November 
10,  he  was  put  on  trial  before  a  court-martial. 

He  admitted  his  hostility.  "From  my  earliest 
youth,"  he  said  to  his  judges,  "I  have  regarded  the 
connection  between  Ireland  and  Great  Britain  as  the 
curse  of  the  Irish  nation,  and  felt  convinced  that  while 
it  lasted  this  country  could  never  be  free  or  happy. 

226 


The  Anglo-Irish  Parliament 

My  mind  has  been  confirmed  in  this  opinion  by  the 
experience  of  every  succeeding  year,  and  the  conclu- 
sions which  I  have  drawn  from  every  fact  before  my 
eyes." 

He  asked  to  be  shot.  He  was  refused.  He  was 
ordered  to  be  hanged  on  November  12.  On  November 
11  he  cut  his  throat,  it  is  said,  with  a  pen-knife.  He 
lived  till  November  19. 

Of  few  Irish  leaders  is  there  such  a  full  personal 
memorial  as  Wolfe  Tone  has  left  in  his  autobiography. 
From  this  book,  and  from  the  history  of  his  time,  we 
can  judge  his  character  and  his  disposition,  his  philos- 
ophy and  his  practice,  his  hopes  and  dreams.  In  its 
personal  vividness  it  is  an  alluring  story.  His  love- 
story  is  one  of  the  most  charming  ever  recorded.  His 
picture  of  Paris  in  1796  has  drawn  warm  admiration 
from  so  severe  a  critic  as  Lecky.  But  it  is  for  the 
qualities  of  mind  that  Wolfe  Tone  brought  to  Irish 
strategy  that  he  is  most  to  be  remembered.  Wolfe 
Tone  was  not  a  sentimentalist  or  a  theorist,  neither 
was  he  a  callous  realist.  He  was  a  candid,  critical, 
imaginative,  and  resolute  man  who  set  himself  about 
the  complicated  and  heroic  task  of  freeing  Ireland.  He 
came  nearer  complete  success  than  any  other  man  in 
modern  times. 

227 


The  Story  of  the  Irish  Nation 

Barry  O'Brien  quotes  one  interesting  witness. 
"Wolfe  Tone,"  said  the  Duke  of  Wellington,  "was  a 
most  extraordinary  man,  and  his  history  is  the  most 
curious  history  of  those  times.  With  a  hundred  guineas 
in  his  pocket,  unknown  and  unrecommended,  he  went  to 
Paris  in  order  to  overturn  the  British  government  in 
Ireland.  He  asked  for  a  large  force,  Lord  Edward 
Fitzgerald  for  a  small  force.  They  listened  to  Tone." 

With  the  death  of  Tone  the  insurrection  of  1798 
expired.  "In  a  cause  like  this,"  he  had  said,  "success 
is  everything.  Washington  succeeded,  and  Kosciusko 
failed."  But  his  tenacity,  his  clarity,  his  ardor,  his 
courage,  remained  to  inspire  his  countrymen.  And 
it  could  never  be  forgotten  that  he  had  unselfishly  and 
unreservedly  espoused  the  cause  of  the  people.  With 
all  his  deep  and  fine  seriousness  he  had,  moreover,  a 
touching  simplicity.  At  thirty-three  he  wrote,  "I  will 
endeavor  to  keep  myself  as  pure  as  I  can,  as  to  the 
means.  As  to  the  end,  it  is  sacred — the  liberty  and 
independence  of  my  country  first,  the  establishment  of 
my  wife  and  our  darling  babies  next,  and  last,  I  hope, 
a  well-earned  reputation." 

He   was    thirty-five   years    old   when   he    died. 
228 


CHAPTER  IX 

THE  UNION  AND  THE  REPEAL  MOVEMENT 


THE    rebellion   of    '98   was    at   last    suppressed," 
observes  Lecky,  "and  the  ministers  determined 
to  avail  themselves  of  the  opportunity  to  annihilate  the 
Irish  parliament.'* 

One  main  reason  for  this  annihilation,  curiously 
enough,  was  the  pressure  of  the  non-represented  Catho- 
lics. It  was  no  longer  pretended  by  English  statesmen 
that  the  native  Irish  could  be  kept  out  of  parliament 
forever.  A  century  of  servitude  had  been  forced  on 
them,  but  the  French  Revolution  had  stirred  their  numb 
political  instincts,  and  the  day  of  crass  penal  laws 
was  at  an  end.  To  admit  them  fully,  however,  was  to 
make  parliament  popular  and  national.  The  British 
or  English  governing  class  could  not  tolerate  the  idea 
of  a  national  Ireland.  Seriously  lacking  in  foresight 
and  obsessed  with  No  Popery,  the  cabinet  could  imagine 
no  better  way  to  dispose  of  Ireland  than  to  smother  it 
in  a  union. 


The  Story  of  the  Irish  Nation 

Wolfe  Tone  had  long  seen  these  underlying  realities. 
He  knew,  and  the  United  Irishmen  knew,  that  England 
had  no  policy  except  to  submerge,  if  necessary  destroy, 
the  Irish  nation.  Hence  he  and  his  companions  had 
worked  hard  to  organize  the  Catholic  Irish.  Through 
Edmund  Burke's  son  Richard  (a  "puppy"),  John 
Keogh,  the  leading  man  of  the  Catholic  commercial 
classes,  and  others,  every  effort  had  been  made  to  stir 
the  will  of  the  masses.  The  Government,  on  its  side, 
had  played  two  clever  counter-games.  One  was  to 
keep  the  ascendancy  of  the  Protestants  an  irritated 
issue,  both  for  the  Anglo-Irish  and  the  Orangemen. 
The  other  was  to  buy  off  the  more  genteel  and  respect- 
able Catholics.  Among  those  "Shoneen"  Catholics, 
Wolfe  Tone  had  moved  as  a  national  diplomat,  and 
with  great  success ;  but  the  failure  of  the  insurrection 
of  1798  gave  the  Government  the  trump  it  was  look- 
ing for. 

That  insurrection  was  a  Government  asset.  It  be- 
came an  asset  the  moment  it  was  given  the  aspect  of 
mob  violence.  By  removing  the  leaders  at  the  last 
minute,  having  previously  quartered  the  soldiers  on 
the  people  to  search  for  arms,  torture,  flog,  rape,  and 
burn  houses  and  chapels,  the  right  mood  of  insane 
desperation  had  .not  been  so  hard  to  produce  in 

230 


The  Union  and  the  Repeal  Movement 

Leinster.  Honest  Abercromby  was  a  hindrance,  but 
Abercromby  was  deleted.  "The  fact  is  incontro- 
vertible," Lord  Holland  said,  "the  people  of  Ireland 
were  driven  into  resistance,  which  possibly  they  medi- 
tated before,  by  the  free  quarters  and  the  excesses  of 
the  soldiers,  which  were  such  as  are  not  permitted 
in  civilized  warfare,  even  in  an  enemy's  country." 

Nothing  played  better  into  the  hands  of  the  English 
than  the  fact  that  priests  led  the  people  in  Wexford. 
Another  valuable  item  was  a  sequence  of  atrocities  in 
Wexford,  on  both  sides,  by  which  it  appeared  that  a 
wicked  Native  Mutiny  was  threatening  the  Protestant 
ascendancy.  In  the  medley  of  passions — passions  of 
pride  and  property — which  this  phantasm  excited,  the 
Government  triumphed  heavily.  The  United  Irishmen's 
controlled  revolution  had  been  turned  into  a  brawl 
and  a  shambles.  It  had  made  Ireland  a  slaughter- 
house. Fifty  thousand,  gentle  and  simple,  had  been 
killed.  The  Government,  which  had  created  a  White 
Terror,  retained  the  prestige  of  dominance. 

But  the  struggle  had  forced  England  to  shed  one 
moral  garment  after  another.  It  was  now  stripped  to 
the  sheer  buff  of  brutality.  The  English  executive  in 
Dublin  Castle  had  used  the  Anglo-Irish  parliament 
as  its  bailiff.  It  had  inflamed  the  feeling  of  ascendancy 

231 


The  Story  of  the  Irish  Nation 

to  a  pitch  that  made  Catholic  emancipation  unthink- 
able. The  Irish  "nation"  as  conceived  by  Grattan 
and  as  lovingly  described  by  Judge  Morris — "a  free 
parliament,  and  a  powerful  landed  gentry,  the  respected 
superiors  of  a  contented  peasantry" — was  not  likely 
to  sprout  out  of  the  graves  of  Father  John  and  Father 
Michael  Murphy.  The  insurrection  being  well  lost  by 
the  native  Irish,  it  was  necessary  to  twist  this  victory 
against  the  "independent"  parliament. 

So  far  the  Ascendancy  had  traveled  with  the  English. 
They  looked  on  the  "rebellion"  as  a  piece  of  peasant 
devilishness.  But  this  did  not  mean  that  they  wanted 
parliamentary  union  with  Britain.  In  Ireland  there 
was  no  public  opinion  in  favor  of  the  Union. 


The  Presbyterians  of  Ulster  had  lost  much  of  their 
fervor  as  United  Irishmen,  owing  to  the  bitterness  of 
the  Orangemen,  the  enlisting  of  yeomanry,  the  "reli- 
gious" atrocities  in  Wexford.  But  what  was  the  use 
of  ascendancy  unless  one  had  an  Ascendancy  parlia- 
ment? "On  this  great  question  there  was  a  perfect 
agreement  between  the  more  liberal  Protestants  who 
followed  the  banner  of  Grattan  and  Ponsonby,  and  the 

232 


The  Union  and  the  Repeal  Movement 

Orangemen  who  represented  the  fiercest  and  most  in- 
tolerant form  of  Protestant  ascendancy."  The  Catho- 
lics, likewise,  were  unfavorable.  Outside  the  bishops, 
the  rising  traders,  and  the  gentry,  the  masses  were 
once  more  huddled  into  political  limbo,  but  their  feeling 
was  fixedly  opposed.  The  legal  profession,  still  mainly 
Protestant,  was  scathingly  against  the  Union.  Those 
who  alone  were  ready  to  end  Grattan's  parliament  were 
the  absentees,  the  English  officials,  and  their  political 
henchmen. 

On  their  side,  however,  were  all  the  resources  of  the 
state.  The  carrying  of  the  Union  was  a  question  of 
marshaling  resources.  The  soldiers  employed  by  the 
Government  during  the  insurrection  now  broke  up 
meetings.  The  presenting  of  petitions  was  at  first 
illegal.  Castlereagh  took  with  pleasure  to  the  business 
of  manufacturing  loyal  petitions,  discharging  men  like 
Sir  John  Parnell  who  refused  to  pledge  themselves  for 
the  Union.  He  saw  the  Presbyterians  and  held  out  a 
Government  donation  to  them.  At  Maynooth  in  1799 
the  four  archbishops  and  six  bishops  "agreed,"  as 
Lecky  puts  it,  "to  accept  with  gratitude  the  payment 
of  the  priests,  and  at  the  same  time  to  grant  the  Gov- 
ernment a  right  of  veto  over  all  future  episcopal  ap- 
pointments as  a  guarantee  of  their  loyalty."  Castle- 

233 


The  Story  of  the  Irish  Nation 

reagh  shrank  from  no  promise  or  no  connivance.  With 
Cornwallis,  the  viceroy,  to  help  him,  "the  whole  patron- 
age of  the  Government  was  steadily,  profusely,  and 
exclusively  employed  in  its  favor." 

Cornwallis  did  not  relish  the  job.  As  viceroy  he  was 
compelled  to  traffic  with  unwashed  and  shameless  graft- 
ers, and  he  showed  his  "sterling  splendor  of  character" 
by  holding  his  nose  with  one  hand  as  he  bribed  with 
the  other.  "The  political  jobbing  of  this  country 
gets  the  better  of  me,"  he  said.  "It  has  ever  been  the 
wish  of  my  life  to  avoid  this  dirty  business,  and  I  am 
now  involved  in  it  beyond  all  bearing."  "I  despise 
and  hate  myself  every  hour,  for  engaging  in  such  dirty 
work,  and  am  supported  only  by  the  reflection,  that 
without  an  Union  the  British  empire  must  be  dissolved." 

The  bluff,  hearty,  honest  Englishman  is  liable  to 
such  moods.  Like  the  Second  Murderer  in  "Richard 
III,"  Cornwallis  was  frequently  attacked  by  the  "holy 
humor."  As  the  honest  murderer  lamented,  "some 
certain  dregs  of  conscience  are  yet  within  me  ...  It 
makes  a  man  a  coward;  a  man  cannot  steal,  but  it  ac- 
cuseth  him;  a  man  cannot  swear,  but  it  checks  him!  a 
man  cannot  lie  with  his  neighbor's  wife,  but  it  detects 
him:  'tis  a  blushing  shamefast  spirit,  that  mutinies  in 
a  man's  bosom ;  it  fills  one  full  of  obstacles  ..." 


The  Union  and  the  Repeal  Movement 

These  obstacles,  so  commendable  in  a  "frank,  honor- 
able, soldier-like"  Second  Murderer  of  Cornwallis's 
type,  did  not  affect  Castlereagh.  Castlereagh  had  no 
humors.  He  was  Robert  Stewart  by  name,  afterward 
Lord  Londonderry.  He  slew  the  parliament,  as  Lecky 
says,  "with  a  quiet,  businesslike  composure ;  nor  is  there 
the  slightest  indication  that  it  caused  him  a  momentary 
uneasiness."  He  was  perfectly  ready  to  use  the  coarse 
word  "corruption."  He  sent  to  Pitt  for  raw  cash 
with  which  to  bribe  the  Press.  McKenna,  the  Catholic 
scribe,  was  a  useful  tool.  Like  a  strong-framed  fellow 
"that  respects  his  reputation,"  Castlereagh  planned 
to  drown  the  Anglo-Irish  parliament  in  a  malmsey- 
butt  of  bribery.  A  cool  First  Murderer,  he  had  his 
high  moral  reason  for  the  murder.  It  was  left  to 
Cornwallis  to  moan: 

A  bloody  deed,  and  desperately  despatch'd ! 
How  fain,  like  Pilate,  would  I  wash  my  hands 
Of  this  most  grievous  murder. 

It  was  indeed  a  bloody  deed,  but  the  filth  of  it  was 
outspokenly  excused  on  the  grounds  of  imperialism. 

As  the  measure  advanced  in  the  Anglo-Irish  parlia- 
ment, the  Protestant  "patriots"  flung  themselves  in 
front  of  it  like  fanatics  before  Juggernaut.  At  first  the 
wheels  of  the  machine  were  clogged  with  these  ardent 

235 


The  Story  of  the  Irish  Nation 

lovers  of  legislative  freedom.  But  more  grease  was 
applied.  Twenty-eight  fresh  Irish  peerages  were  be- 
stowed on  the  kind  of  people  who  believed  and  stated 
that  "on  the  Continent  Rank  is  inestimable,  and  even 
at  home  it  is  no  small  addition."  For  £1,260,000, 
eighty  rotten  boroughs  were  bought  out,  and  charged  to 
the  Irish  national  debt.  More  than  sixty  favorable 
votes  were  registered  by  new  office-holders.  Liberal 
annuities,  to  be  charged  against  Ireland,  were  prom- 
ised right  and  left.  Grattan,  dragged  from  his  sick- 
bed, spoke  for  two  hours  against  the  slaying  of  his 
own  creation.  "The  thing  he  proposes  to  buy  is  what 
cannot  be  sold — liberty."  Petitions,  especially  from 
the  North,  at  last  were  issued ;  twenty-seven  counties 
and  107,000  signatures  against,  and  3000  signatures 
not  against.  But  Dublin  Castle,  plus  its  favors,  ob- 
tained 158  votes  to  113  and  overpowered  Anglo-Ire- 
land. 

3 

No  whitewash  has  ever  covered  up  the  means  by 
which  the  Union  was  carried.  "The  corruption,"  Lord 
Rosebery  admits,  "was  black,  hideous,  horrible;  re- 
volting at  any  time,  atrocious  when  it  is  remembered 
that  it  was  a  nation's  birthright  that  was  being  sold" 
— and  bought.  As  a  former  British  premier,  however, 

236 


The  Union  and  the  Repeal  Movement 

he  defends  it.  He  points  out  that  "the  purchase  of 
that  parliament  was  habitual  and  invariable."  Was 
it  not  better,  he  asks  with  Castlereagh,  once  and  for  all 
to  end  it,  than  "to  go  on  in  the  vile  old  way,  hiring, 
haggling,  jobbing,  from  one  dirty  day  to  another,  from 
one  miserable  year  to  another?'* 

To  transplant  the  legislature  to  England,  rather 
than  to  transplant  the  executive  to  Ireland,  was  the 
masterly  statesmanship  of  the  Union.  Rosebery  ex- 
plains it  and  excused  it  as  a  war  measure.  Napoleon 
threatened  England.  How  was  England  to  know  that 
Ireland  was  "loyal?"  No  matter  how  loyal  Anglo-Ire- 
land might  seem,  the  ghost  of  the  conquered  nation 
could  at  any  moment  arise.  To  England's  statesmen 
"struggling  in  a  great  war,  unity  and  simplicity  of 
government  were  everything."  Thus  Pitt  enforced  on 
England  and  on  a  preoccupied  British  legislature  the 
task  of  handling  Ireland  not  as  a  partner-nation,  but 
as  a  subject-nation.  Pitt  consecrated  this  imperial 
idea  of  Ireland  a  subject-nation,  to  be  ruled  in  what- 
ever way  suited  the  game  of  British  politics,  working 
especially  on  the  class  and  religious  dissensions  in  Ire- 
land. 

This  masterpiece  of  political  genius  was  concocted 
under  the  influence  of  profound  English  snobbishness. 

237 


The  Story  of  the  Irish  Nation 

It  not  only  ignored  the  commercial  interests  of  Anglo- 
Ireland,  which  had  thrived  under  the  parliament.  It 
also  patronized  the  Anglo-Irish  and  despised  the  na- 
tive Irish.  This  condescension  was,  however,  soon  to  be 
converted  into  bitter  race  animosity,  under  the  provo- 
cative personality  of  Daniel  O'Connell. 


The  act  itself  went  into  effect  January  1,  1801.  It 
united  Great  Britain  and  Ireland  "for  ever"  as  the 
United  Kingdom ;  gave  Ireland  thirty-two  peers  in 
the  house  of  lords,  four  of  them  churchmen  and 
twenty-eight  of  them  elected  for  life  by  all  the  Irish 
peers;  fixed  one  hundred  members  as  Ireland's  perma- 
nent representation  in  the  house  of  commons ;  solemnly 
and  fundamentally  joined  the  Irish  Protestant  Church 
with  the  English  as  "the  Established  Church  of  Eng- 
land and  Ireland**;  arranged  a  customs  union;  decided 
that  Ireland  contribute  two-seventeenths  of  the  com- 
mon expenditure;  that  any  excess  of  revenue  should  be 
applied  on  Ireland's  national  debt;  that  if  Ireland's 
debt  became  as  great  as  two-seventeenths  of  the  Eng- 
lish, the  exchequers  could  be  amalgamated  and  taxation 

238 


The  Union  and  the  Repeal  Movement 

made  equal,  subject  to  whatever  remission  Ireland's 
case  required. 

The  Irish  viceroy  remained,  with  the  separate  ex- 
chequer, separate  judiciary,  and  separate  administra- 
tion. 

The  administration  continued  to  be  definitely  alien- 
ated from  the  native  Irish  all  through  the  nineteenth 
century. 

In  1802  Lord  Redesdale,  chancellor  at  £10,000  a 
year,  declared  that  Ireland  must  be  kept  as  a  "gar- 
risoned country."  The  administration  became  the 
"garrison."  Of  the  viceroys,  chief  secretaries,  and 
under-secretaries  up  to  1906,  five  out  of  157  were 
Catholic  and  "about  sixteen  only  in  touch  with  Irish 
public  opinion."  So  said  Barry  O'Brien  in  his  detailed 
book  on  Dublin  Castle.  When  he  wrote  in  1909,  three 
of  the  seventeen  high  court  judges,  eight  of  the  twenty- 
one  county  court  judges,  five  of  the  thirty-seven  county 
inspectors  of  the  police,  sixty-two  of  the  202  district 
inspectors,  1805  of  the  5518  ordinary  justices  of  the 
peace,  and  eight  of  the  sixty-eight  privy  councilors 
were  Catholic  Irish.  The  rest  were  "garrison."  How- 
ever "well-meaning"  the  British  Government  became, 
it  never  became  so  well-meaning  as  to  allow  the  native 

239 


The  Story  of  the  Irish  Nation 

and  nationalist  Irish  to  have  an  influential  share  in 
their  own  Government. 


In  the  first  somber  years  of  the  Union  there  came 
a  flaming  epilogue  to  1798.  Among  the  many  Dublin 
professional  men — Whitley  Stokes,  McNevin,  Dowdall 
• — who  were  devoted  to  Ireland,  no  family  was  so  spirited 
as  Dr.  Emmet's.  He  was  state  physician  to  the  vice- 
regal court,  of  English  and  Cromwellian  stock,  a  man 
of  swinging,  original  mind,  who  kept  his  household  in 
Stephen's  Green  in  a  ferment  of  unconventional  discus- 
sion. His  able  son  Thomas  Addis  Emmet  had  been 
imprisoned  in  Scotland  since  1798,  but  had  been  al- 
lowed to  go  to  the  Continent  after  peace  was  declared 
in  1801.  Robert  Emmet,  born  in  1778,  entered  Trinity 
College  early.  He  was  a  warm  friend  of  Thomas 
Moore,  to  whose  cherubic  appearance  his  own  lean, 
dry,  wiry  person,  with  his  pock-marked  face,  was  in 
great  contrast.  It  was  typical  of  Trinity  that  in 
1798  the  Earl  of  Clare  should  have  held  an  inquisition 
to  rout  out  the  United  Irishmen — and  typical  of  Rob- 
ert Emmet  that  his  protest  brought  his  dismissal. 

It  was  in  this  period  that  Moore  wrote  "Let  Erin 
Remember  the  Days  of  Old,"  sung  to  an  old  Irish  air 

240 


The  Union  and  the  Repeal  Movement 

which  made  young  Emmet  cry :  "Oh  that  I  were  at  the 
head  of  twenty  thousand  men  marching  to  that  air !" 
In  1801  he  went  to  Paris,  meeting  his  brother  later 


Robert    Emmet 


in  Brussels.  There  was  talk  of  help  in  August,  1803. 
For  three  months,  at  the  head  of  a  small  but  absolutely 
reliable  organization,  he  worked  to  collect  men  and 
munitions  for  a  sudden  movement  to  seize  Dublin  Castle, 
thus  to  paralyze  the  Government  and  to  await  a  general 

241 


The  Story  of  the  Irish  Nation 

rising.  On  July  16  in  Patrick  Street,  Dublin,  a  gun- 
powder explosion,  killing  one  man,  was  traced  to  a 
store  full  of  pikes,  blunderbusses,  powder.  This  re- 
vealed fresh  insurgent  activity.  The  Castle  had  an 
Ulster  spy  named  Turner  at  work,  and  Leonard  Mc- 
Nally,  "the  incorruptible,"  but  neither  had  been  trusted 
by  Emmet.  The  ill  luck  of  the  explosion,  however, 
forced  the  insurgents  to  strike  out  of  hand,  July  23. 
In  his  green  general's  uniform,  Robert  Emmet  and  his 
handful  of  men  sallied  from  Marshalsea  Lane  in  golden 
evening  light,  to  overpower  the  Castle.  A  rabble  col- 
lected from  the  quays  and  slums,  fast  on  the  heels  of 
Emmet's  uniformed  men ;  old  Judge  Kilwarden  and  his 
nephew  were  dragged  from  a  carriage  and  murdered; 
the  assault  became  a  meaningless  scuffle  in  narrow 
streets ;  and  Emmet's  dream  of  a  brilliant  coup  was 
quenched  in  innocent  blood. 

He  retreated  from  the  brawl  to  his  cottage  at  Rath- 
farnam.  He  could  have  escaped.  His  housekeeper, 
Anne  Devlin,  was  tortured  by  the  soldiers  but  refused 
to  betray  him,  and  he  remained  hidden.  But  his  love 
for  Sarah  Curran  gave  a  clue :  he  was  arrested  in  Sep- 
tember. He  offered  to  plead  guilty  to  keep  from  im- 
plicating the  daughter  of  the  great  lawyer,  was  instead 
trapped  by  a  letter  he  had  sent  to  her,  and  had  the 

242 


The  Union  and  the  Repeal  Movement 

anguish  of  seeing  their  love  revealed.  John  Philpot 
Curran  angrily  threw  up  his  brief,  and  Dublin  Castle 
rejoiced  to  have  their  spy  McNally  become  his  attor- 
ney. All  through  the  trial  the  highest  English  officials 
studied  Emmet's  secrets  as  Emmet  entrusted  them  to 
his  counsel.  But  this  charming  example  of  state  chiv- 
alry (disclosed  in  detail  in  "The  Viceroy's  Post-Bag" 
by  Michael  MacDonagh)  was  of  no  personal  conse- 
quence. Robert  Emmet  was  guilty.  The  jury  found 
him  guilty  without  retiring.  For  twelve  hours  on  his 
feet,  he  then  delivered  that  immortal  speech,  one  hour 
long,  which  ended,  "When  my  country  takes  her  place 
among  the  nations  of  the  earth,  then,  and  not  till  then, 
let  my  epitaph  be  written." 

The  effect  of  Emmet's  oration,  delivered  in  round, 
clear,  cadent  tones,  was  so  sincere  and  moving  that 
even  Norbury,  the  "hanging  judge,"  is  reported  to 
have  wept.  His  counsel,  McNally,  kissed  him  as  he  was 
taken  away.  He  was  hanged  the  next  afternoon. 

"My  friends,"  he  said  from  the  gallows  in  Thomas 
Street,  "I  die  in  peace,  with  sentiments  of  universal 
love  and  kindness  toward  all  men." 

Emmet  was  twenty-five  years  old.  His  execution 
took  place  September  20,  1803.  His  comportment 
from  the  beginning  was  that  of  a  rapt  and  disinterested 

243 


The  Story  of  the  Irish  Nation 

spirit,  whose  love  of  Ireland  burned  like  a  flame.  But 
his  light  did  not  pierce  the  grayness  after  the  Union. 
The  provost  of  Trinity  was  more  in  the  spirit  of  the 
times  when,  writing  to  the  viceroy  the  morning  after 
Kilwarden's  nephew  was  murdered,  he  intimated  faith- 
fully, humbly,  and  obediently  that  he  had  two  sons  in 
orders  who'd  like  to  be  kept  in  mind,  since  "the  horrid 
murders  of  last  night  have  left  a  living  vacant."  Dogs 
did  not  lap  blood  in  the  gutters  more  quickly  than  did 
these  gentlemen  lick  up  patronage. 

6 

At  this  time  Daniel  O'Connell  was  twenty-eight  years 
of  age.  His  was  an  extremely  different  spirit  from 
that  of  Robert  Emmet,  and  though  he  detested  the 
Union,  and  had  said  so  as  a  young  barrister  in  his 
first  public  meeting,  his  whole  temperament  and  train- 
ing were  opposed  to  violence.  From  St.  Omer,  where 
he  was  a  schoolboy  in  France,  he  learned  to  hate  the 
French  Revolution. 

He  was  reared  in  the  bland  airs  of  Kerry,  in  the 
midst  of  the  O'Connell  clan.  His  father  and  mother 
cared  enough  about  devolving  property  legally  to  be 
married  in  a  Protestant  church  as  well  as  in  a  Catholic 
chapel,  but  a  strong  tribal  tradition  showed  itself  in 


The  Union  and  the  Repeal  Movement 

his  being  placed  with  foster-parents  in  a  cottage  till  he 
was  four.  He  talked  Gaelic  from  infancy.  He  was 
brought  up  close  to  the  people,  close  to  their  folk- 
ways and  legends  and  passions,  and  close  to  their  life 
of  the  soil.  His  education  in  France  gave  him  social 
unction — the  unction  of  an  abbe — and  as  he  matured 
he  became  very  much  the  chieftain;  lavish,  hospitable, 
generous,  paternalistic.  But  what  made  him  most 
different  from  the  "intellectuals"  of  the  United  Irish- 
men was  his  genial  knowledge  of  country-people,  his 
flashing  human  intuition,  his  ability  to  read  them,  to 
lead  them — to  lead  them  astray.  He  was  the  supreme 
example  of  the  jury-trial  lawyer.  He  was  agile  in 
mind,  even  more  agile  in  emotion,  enormous  in  vitality, 
in  vivacity,  and  in  perseverance.  A  big  man  in  height 
and  frame,  he  had  a  ruddy  face  which  grew  heavy  in 
age,  a  small  snub  nose,  singularly  lovely  blue  eyes. 
His  voice  was  golden,  of  great  range,  sweetness,  and 
carrying  power,  with  deep  notes  and  that  ability  to 
sustain  a  flight  without  apparent  effort,  as  of  a  mighty 
eagle  soaring  on  level  wing.  In  the  incredible  repeal 
meetings  of  1843,  which  were  attended  by  crowds  as 
great  as  250,000  people,  O'Connell's  voice  could 
naturally  not  be  heard  to  their  reverential  limits,  but 
few  human  beings  have  ever  exercised  such  power  of 

£45 


The  Story  of  the  Irish  Nation 

oratory.  He  conjured  with  the  people  of  three  prov- 
inces. He  swayed  multitudes  with  the  caress  of  a 
syllable. 

This  extraordinary  emotional  power  was  soon  em- 
ployed by  O'Connell  in  a  cause  he  sincerely  loved.  It 
was  the  kind  of  cause  that  suited  his  nature — a  con- 
crete, simple,  obvious  reform  within  strict  legal  and 
constitutional  limits  to  which  he  could  devote  his  stren- 
uous, combative  disposition  without  enduring  for  a 
moment  the  acute  loneliness  of  a  departure  from  the 
mob.  This  was  the  cause  of  Catholic  emancipation,  or 
seats  in  parliament  for  Catholics. 

7 

The  exclusion  of  Catholics  from  the  British  house  of 
commons  was  the  result  of  double-dealing.  When  Pitt 
and  Castlereagh  were  touting  the  Union,  they  con- 
veyed to  the  Catholic  archbishops  a  definite  under- 
standing that  the  Union  would  mean  Catholic  eman- 
cipation, the  commutation  of  the  tithes,  and  state  pay- 
ment of  priests.  "When  the  devil  was  well,  the  devil  a 
saint  was  he."  With  the  Union  safely  delivered,  "Pitt 
was  under  the  strongest  moral  obligation  to  do  the 
utmost  in  his  power  to  carry  the  measure,"  says  Lecky. 
"It  is,  however,  quite  plain  that  Pitt,  having  obtained 

246 


The  Union  and  the  Repeal  Movement 

the  service  he  required  from  the  Catholics,  had  very 
little  wish  to  incur  for  their  sakes-  any  serious  difficulty 
he  could  possibly  avoid.'* 

This  "definite  betrayal  of  the  Catholic  cause"  was 
aided  by  George  Ill's  insanity.  George  went  off  his 
head  when  Pitt  broached  the  subject,  and  Pitt,  after 
a  noble  resignation,  came  back  to  office  on  the  old  terms. 
He  took  King  George's  attitude  as  final,  and  pledged 
himself  to  silence.  This  pledge  was  congenial,  and  he 
kept  it,  but  it  drove  the  Catholic  hierarchy  from  nib- 
bling at  loyalty  to  a  position  in  which,  under  O'Con- 
nell's  leadership,  they  defied  even  the  Vatican  on  the 
subject  of  the  veto,  and  rejected  forever  any  idea  of 
being  paid  by  the  state. 

O'Connell  was  thirty-six  when  he  «ame  to  the  front 
with  the  Catholic  Committee  in  1810.  The  extreme 
subdivision  of  the  land,  owing  to  the  demand  for  corn 
as  well  as  meat  during  the  Napoleonic  War,  created  an 
abnormal  condition  of  high  rents,  high  prices,  and 
swollen  prosperity.  It  was  not  till  the  collapse  of 
rents  and  wages  and  the  beginning  of  evictions,  after 
1815  and  peace,  that  the  Catholic  agitation  became 
keen.  Up  to  1820,  the  year  he  died,  Grattan  had 
striven  for  Catholic  emancipation  (with  the  veto)  in 
the  house  of  commons.  His  death  cleared  the  way  for 

24,7 


The  Story  of  the  Irish  Nation 

O'Connell.  In  1823,  working  through  the  Maynooth- 
educated,  national-minded  priests,  lie  organized  the 
Catholic  Association,  began  collecting  the  peasants' 
pennies  as  Catholic  Rent,  and  linked  with  the  measure 


Daniel      O'Connell 


of  emancipation  a  promise  of  justice,  legal  aid,  and 
advocacy  to  the  exploited  tenant  class.  As  the  fore- 
most Catholic  barrister,  earning  £9000  a  year,  O'Con- 
nell had  colossal  legal  prestige.  He  spent  himself 
lavishly  on  his  combined  work  as  Liberator  and  Tri- 

248 


The  Union  and  the  Repeal  Movement 

bune.  The  Government,  through  the  dry  and  anti- 
pathetic Peel,  had  now  determined  to  hold  Ireland  by 
the  quiet  means  of  an  imperial  constabulary  and  paid 
magistrates.  Its  land  policy  was  landlord-made.  It 
facilitated  cheap  ejectments,  in  case  of  non-payment 
of  rack-rent.  The  Government  had  also  quietly  stimu- 
lated Orangeism  and  converted  the  Presbyterian 
Church  to  great  loyalty  by  giving  it  an  annual  grant. 
In  1826  an  election  in  Waterford  saw  the  tenants  break 
away  from  the  landlords.  In  1828,  a  parliamentary 
vacancy  occurring  in  Clare,  O'Connell  decided  to  bring 
his  agitation  to  a  head  by  the  bold  method  of  seeking 
election  to  a  parliament  in  which  it  was  not  legal  for 
a  Catholic  to  sit.  His  opponent,  Vesey  Fitzgerald, 
was  a  respected  liberal,  who  had  the  support  of  the 
gentry  to  a  man.  But  O'ConnelPs  speeches  and  pam- 
phlets, the  new  Catholic  press  and  the  aroused  priests 
had  at  last  turned  abject  submissiveness  of  the  feudal 
peasant  voter.  The  tenants  defied  their  landlords  and 
elected  O'Connell.  This  more  than  anything  else  se- 
cured emancipation  in  1829. 

With  this  movement  for  emancipation,  O'Connell  had 
begun  the  first  popular  constitutional  agitation  in  Ire- 
land. It  was,  of  course,  an  easy  issue  on  which  to  ap- 
peal to  Irish  pride.  It  concerned  the  Catholic  gentry, 

249 


The  Story  of  the  Irish  Nation 

the  peasant  voters,  the  priests  themselves.  Because 
it  concerned  the  priests,  O'Connell  was  able  to  seize 
the  one  existing  nation-wide,  popular  machinery  for 
creating  and  binding  national  opinion,  combining  it 
with  his  aid  to  oppressed  tenants,  parish  by  parish. 
And  because  of  O'Connell's  personality,  his  ready  wit, 
his  brusque  and  scathing  humor,  his  broad  brush- 
strokes and  primary  colors,  he  gave  Ireland  what  it  had 
not  possessed  for  two  hundred  years — a  national  chief- 
tain. His  was  chieftaincy  in  a  cause  that  at  first  was 
utterly  simple,  racial,  and  religious.  It  enabled  O'Con- 
nell to  forget  he  had  ever  joined  the  free-masons  or  ad- 
mired Godwin  or  agreed  with  Mary  Wollstonecraft. 
He  drank  deep  of  enthusiasm,  applause,  unanimity. 
Like  many  big  men  with  little  noses,  he  was  something 
of  a  physiological  conservative,  and  he  became  con- 
firmed very  early  in  his  great  career  in  his  need  for  a 
tremendous  volume  of  popular  support.  He  was  like  a 
vast  balloon,  that  sagged  and  flapped  ingloriously  until 
pumped  from  outside.  But  on  some  elemental  issues 
he  was  self-supporting.  He  hated  negro  slavery,  and 
sent  back  to  the  Southern  States  some  large  sub- 
scriptions from  slaveholders.  He  had  stubborn  con- 
servative opinions  on  the  subject  of  trade-unions,  and 
a  decided  belief  in  the  sacred  rights  of  property.  These 

250 


The  Union  and  the  Repeal  Movement 

he  declared  even  when  inexpedient.  And  he  had  a 
rough,  satiric  genius,  which  he  employed  from  the  start 
to  affront  and  outrage  the  Ascendancy. 

He  and  his  handful  of  supporters  were  eventually 
seated  in  the  house  of  commons. 

8 

The  British  house  of  commons  was  no  place  for  an 
Irish  agitator.  It  had  already  developed  "that  tone 
of  gentlemanly  moderation,  that  well-bred  pungent 
raillery  which  is  so  characteristic  of  the  English  par- 
liament, and  of  successful  British  ministers."  It  did 
not  suit  O'ConnelPs  temper  or  mission  to  meet  the  mood 
of  this  house.  He  could  not  flute  politely  about  ques- 
tions of  national  subordination,  enslavement,  or  star- 
vation. "The  best  club  in  the  world"  did  not  squirm  at 
dishonesty :  they  squirmed  at  the  mention  of  it.  O'Con- 
nell  called  Lord  Alvanley  "a  bloated  buffoon"  and  Peel 
"Orange  Peel,"  and  said  of  one  statesman  that  he  was 
"a  lineal  descendant  of  the  impenitent  thief"  and  of 
another  that  he  was  "a  fellow  whose  visage  would 
frighten  a  horse  from  his  oats."  The  house  left  its 
answer  to  hired  bullies.  The  well-bred  raillery  of  the 
"London  Times"  was  to  retort  that  O'Connell  was  a 
rancorous,  foul-mouthed  ruffian.  England  named  him 

251 


The  Story  of  the  Irish  Nation 

the  Big  Beggarman.  And,  on  achieving  Catholic  eman- 
cipation, he  was  blackballed  by  a  ladylike  English 
Catholic  Club.  It  was,  of  course,  the  natural  fate  of 
an  agitator.  A  wise  statesman  did  not  exactly  wag 
his  tail  when  he  saw  O'Connell  approaching  with  a 
string  and  a  can. 

O'Connell's  immoderation  and  exuberance  were  trifles. 
His  serious  faults  were  deeper  than  those  of  taste.  He 
was  a  national  leader  but  not  a  national  architect. 
On  some  questions  like  the  poor  law  system  he  thought 
widely.  He  grasped  the  horror  of  Irish  famine  in  ample 
time  to  give  England  a  policy  and  a  lead.  But  among 
the  trees  of  politics  he  did  not  see  the  national  wood. 
He  had  no  education  policy  except  to  reject  the  queen's 
colleges  as  "godless"  colleges.  He  was  quite  ready  to 
give  up  his  native  tongue  on  utilitarian  grounds.  He 
advocated  state-aided  emigration.  He  doted  on  Vic- 
toria as  "our  darling  queen."  He  required  and  yet 
denounced  the  use  of  force.  He  actually  contemplated 
the  Irish  as  West  Britons,  provided  they  gained  cer- 
tain reforms.  As  between  Grattan's  parliament  and 
federal  home  rule  he  had  no  spiritual  compass.  He  was, 
in  these  matters,  an  opportunist.  With  all  sail  set  and 
a  high  heart,  he  caught  the  breeze  of  Catholic  emanci- 
pation and  carried  the  freight  to  port.  Where  he  was 

252 


The  Union  and  the  Repeal  Movement 

lost  was  in  the  campaign  that  followed,  running  before 
the  infinitely  stronger  wind  of  repeal.  In  advocating  the 
repeal  of  the  Union  O'Connell  collected  those  streams 
of  feeling  with  which  conquest  and  confiscation  still 
flooded  the  Irish  air.  But  he  had  disowned  the  use  of 
force.  He  was  permanently  "constitutional."  All 
England  needed  to  do  to  defeat  him  was  to  become 
illegal  and  unconstitutional  herself,  which  she  did. 


Before  O'Connell  entered  on  the  agitation  for  the 
repeal  of  the  Union,  he  gave  the  British  parliament  a 
fair  trial.  One  hand  had  taken  away  the  vote  from  the 
poorest  class  of  Irishmen  at  the  time  that  the  other 
extended  Catholic  emancipation,  but  even  if  the  Govern- 
ment conspicuously  declined  to  make  O'Connell  a  K.  C., 
to  which  distinction  he  was  entitled,  he  and  his  clan 
soon  made  an  alliance  with  the  Whigs.  Ortonnell  asso- 
ciated himself  with  the  1832  Reform  Bill,  and  when  Mel- 
bourne returned  to  power  in  1835  an  Irish  agitator 
was  for  the  first  time  consulted  as  to  Irish  appoint- 
ments in  Irish  government. 

It  was,  on  the  whole,  a  period  of  democratic  ten- 
dency, with  the  state  ready  to  give  Ireland  those  means 
of  popular  uplift  of  which  England  thought  it  stood  in 

253 


The  Story  of  the  Irish  Nation 

need.  The  ideas  of  the  time  were  rational,  and  it  seemed 
sensible  to  bestow  on  the  Irish  a  primary  school  system 
on  the  English  model,  prohibiting  Irish  language,  Irish 
literature,  Irish  history,  and  ail  mention  of  religion. 
Following  this  scheme — which  aimed  to  make  the  Irish 
rural  population  read,  write,  and  cipher — there  was 
devised  a  poor-law  system  and  a  dispensary-doctor  sys- 
tem. The  main  feature  of  the  poor-law  system  was 
to  be  the  erection  of  one  hundred  vast  barracks,  each 
capable  of  holding  1000  paupers,  scattered  through  the 
country.  In  these  great  storage-warehouses,  called 
"workhouses,"  the  idle  poor  were  to  be  lodged  in  per- 
manent idleness,  branded  as  paupers,  and  grouped  in 
pauper  uniforms  according  to  sex.  Another  reform, 
much  desired  by  the  rising  Catholic  mercantile  class, 
was  popular  municipal  government.  Till  1840  no  Irish 
Catholic  had  ever  been  admitted  to  the  Dublin  Corpora- 
tion. So  important  did  the  concession  seem  that 
O'Connell  himself  became  the  first  Catholic  lord  mayor, 
in  the  interval  before  the  repeal  agitation. 

But  the  poor  law,  the  education  scheme,  municipal 
reform,  Catholic  emancipation,  did  not  go  deep  into 
either  of  the  real  issues — the  festering  issues  created 
by  conquest  and  confiscation.  To  undo  confiscation, 
which  had  dispossessed  the  Irish  clansmen,  was  the  som- 

254 


The  Union  and  the  Repeal  Movement 

her,  sleepless  desire  of  the  starving  masses  of  the  Irish 
people.  This  desire  was  put  in  words  by  James  Fintan 
Lalor  some  years  later:  "The  cry  of  Irish  nationality, 
and  the  cry  against  the  Union,  are  of  little  use;  they 
have  no  real  hold  on  the  minds  of  the  people ;  what  the 
peasantry  want  is  the  land  for  themselves ;  this  cry 
must  be  combined  with  the  others ;  the  British  Govern- 
ment can  be  only  attacked  successfully  through  an  at- 
tack on  the  Irish  landed  gentry."  It  was,  however,  not 
as  an  attack  on  the  gentry  but  as  an  attack  on  the 
established  church  that  the  fight  was  first  waged. 

One  of  the  quite  barefaced  acts  of  the  Anglo-Irish 
parliament  had  been  to  exempt  pasture-lands  from 
tithes.  This  threw  an  extra  burden  on  the  Catholic 
cottiers.  The  cost  of  maintaining  the  Protestant  es- 
tablished church  was,  in  fact,  saddled  in  the  South 
"exclusively  on  the  poorest  of  the  Catholic  tenantry." 

This  was  an  exaction  that  aroused  a  peculiarly 
fierce  anger  in  the  otherwise  suppressed  and  impotent 
Catholic  peasant.  He  was  the  victim  of  a  land  system 
which  he  could  not  throw  off,  dependent  for  his  very 
life  on  landlords — often  absentee — who  gave  him  no 
vested  interest,  raised  the  rent  because  of  improve- 
ments, charged  what  rent  they  pleased,  and  evicted  at 
will.  In  this  unsound  and  inhuman  caste  system  the 

255 


The  Story  of  the  Irish  Nation 

tenant  felt  himself  bewilderingly  entangled,  with  the 
law  against  him,  the  police  against  him,  the  military 
against  him,  the  agent  against  him — every  one  except 
the  priest  and  the  "counselor."  But  in  the  case  of 
tithes  he  did  not  feel  so  helpless  or  so  bewildered.  He 
could  grasp  the  dastardly  injustice  of  his  being  com- 
pelled to  support  the  church  of  the  Ascendancy,  and  on 
this  issue  he  was  prepared  to  do  battle. 

Peel's  Protestant  constabulary  did  what  they  could 
from  1831  on,  to  protect  the  tithe-collectors.  In  1832 
there  was  a  massacre  in  Kilkenny,  and  242  homicides 
within  the  year.  The  next  years  saw  hideous  epi- 
sodes. A  Scottish  under-secretary,  Thomas  Drum- 
mond,  then  arrived  on  the  scene.  He  was  a  sympathetic 
liberal.  He  made  up  his  mind  that  the  Castle  might  at 
last  dispense  with  the  amiable  custom  of  raising  the 
British  flag  to  celebrate  the  Battle  of  the  Boyne.  He 
strove  to  give  the  Catholics  a  part  in  the  administra- 
tion, to  admit  them  to  the  royal  Irish  constabulary, 
to  cut  off  the  secret  stimulus  to  Orangeism  which  had 
been  supplied  by  Government  policy  since  the  Union, 
to  admonish  magistrates  not  to  counsel  massacre,  and 
to  remind  landlords  that  "property  has  its  duties  as 
well  as  its  rights." 

By  1838  the  British  Government  acted.  It  passed 
256 


The  Union  and  the  Repeal  Movement 

a  bill  making  the  tithe  part  of  the  rent,  and  reducing 
both  the  exasperation  and  the  extortion. 

10 

But  this  left  the  land  system  where  it  was.  In  1836 
a  royal  commission  revealed  the  utter  rottenness  of 
a  depressed,  neglected,  exploited,  non-educated  people. 
Out  of  work  and  in  distress,  there  were  585,000  men 
with  1,800,000  dependents,  making  2,385,000  in  all. 
The  average  weekly  wage  had  sunk  to  about  two  shil- 
lings six  pence  a  week.  Lord  John  Russell  thought  that 
if  these  2,385,000  gradually  moved  into  workhouses 
they  could  live  in  a  "superior  degree  of  comfort."  But 
the  native  Irish  did  not  show  any  inclination  to  be 
stored  in  workhouses,  on  two  meals  a  day,  with  men 
segregated  in  one  yard,  women  in  another,  the  children 
in  another.  "Confinement  of  any  kind  is  more  irksome 
to  an  Irishman  than  it  is  even  to  an  Englishman,"  said 
the  commissioner,  "and  hence,  although  the  Irishman 
may  be  lodged,  fed,  and  clothed  in  a  workhouse  better 
than  he  could  lodge,  feed,  and  clothe  himself  by  his  own 
exertions,  he  will  yet  never  enter  the  workhouse  unless 
driven  there  by  actual  necessity." 

The  population  in  1841  was  8,175,000,  with  fourteen 
workhouses  just  completed.  And  the  population  con- 

257 


The  Story  of  the  Irish  Nation 

tinued  to  rise.  In  this  period  O'Connell  began  his 
agitation  for  the  repeal  of  the  Union.  While  his 
"monster  meetings"  were  in  progress,  and  Father 
Mathew's  great  temperance  campaign,  the  people 
gathered  steadily  and  mutely  for  an  economic  disaster 
which  English  statesmanship  looked  upon  as  deplorably 
"inevitable."  For  ten  years  before  the  great  arti- 
ficial famine  the  house  of  commons  mooned  about  it. 
They  watched  Ireland  in  fascinated  apprehension,  as 
contractors  might  watch  fresh  arrivals  climb  to  an 
unsafe  platform,  already  overloaded.  But  the  O'Con- 
nell formula  was  constitutionality.  "No  human  revolu- 
tion," he  declared,  "is  worth  the  effusion  of  one  single 
drop  of  human  blood."  He  went  ahead  organizing  the 
people  for  larger  and  larger  assemblies  and  meetings, 
until  more  than  500,000  were  believed  to  be  assembling 
for  a  Sunday  demonstration  at  Clontarf  in  October, 
1843.  On  the  Saturday  before  it  Peel  decided  to 
meet  constitutional  agitation  and  "moral  force"  with 
unconstitutional  prohibition  and  a  few  guns.  He  "pro- 
claimed" the  meeting.  O'Connell  had  either  to  risk  an 
Amritsar  or  to  admit  that  the  Government  could  always 
treat  peaceful  assembly  as  criminal.  He  yielded,  and 
his  submission  ended  the  constitutional  movement  for 
repeal. 

258 


The  Union  and  the  Repeal  Movement 

The  economic  crash  came  in  1846.  Out  of  8,500,000 
nearly  6,000,000  were  still  living  in  the  kind  of  hovels 
that  Petty  had  described  in  their  "nasty  brutishness" 
in  the  seventeenth  century.  Their  food  was  potatoes. 
When  the  potato  crop  failed  in  1845,  and  again  in 
1846,  nothing  but  the  landlords  and  the  Government 
and  private  charity  stood  between  them  and  death  from 
hunger.  The  Government  behaved  with  sodden  lethargy 
and  stupidity.  Daniel  O'Connell,  now  over  seventy,  a 
broken  man,  dragged  himself  in  1847  across  to  the 
house  of  commons.  In  a  voice  so  feeble  as  to  be  vir- 
tually inaudible  he  said  to  them:  "Ireland  is  in  your 
hands,  in  your  power.  If  you  do  not  save  her  she  cannot 
save  herself.  I  solemnly  call  on  you  to  recollect  that 
I  predict  with  the  sincerest  conviction  that  a  quarter 
of  her  population  will  perish  unless  you  come  to  her 
relief."  It  was  a  plutocratic  body  but  not  without  a 
dramatic  sense.  O'Connell's  voice  came  almost  from 
the  grave.  They  were  impressed,  moved,  reverential, 
sorry  for  the  poor  old  boy.  But  their  god  was 
Property.  The  Irish,  powerless  to  legislate,  counseled 
by  the  priests  and  by  O'Connell  to  trust  the  Govern- 
ment, allowed  this  food  to  leave  Ireland. 

The  old  leader  was  powerless.  Already  afflicted  by 
softening  of  the  brain,  he  left  Ireland  in  1847  to  travel 

259 


The  Story  of  the  Irish  Nation 

to  Rome,  where  he  was  regarded  as  perhaps  the  greatest 
living  Catholic  layman.  He  was  so  ill  that  he  halted  at 
Genoa,  and  died  there  May,  1847,  his  mind  almost  com- 
pletely crumbled.  His  last  journey  has  the  twilight 
sadness  of  the  Flight  of  the  Earls.  It  was  more  sad, 
because  he  had  left  the  Irish  nation  forever.  His 
body  was  returned  to  be  buried  in  Glasnevin:  his  heart 
was  sent  to  Rome. 


260 


CHAPTER  X 

THE  LAND  WAR. 


THE  O'Connell  formula  in  this  period,  that  "no 
human  revolution  is  worth  the  effusion  of  one 
single  drop  of  human  blood,"  had  never  appealed  to 
Young  Ireland,  the  successors  to  the  men  of  1798.  In 
1841  this  ardent  group,  comprising  Thomas  Davis, 
Charles  Gavan  Duffy,  and  John  O'Hagan  at  first,  had 
begun  a  movement  of  which  "The  Nation"  was  their 
organ. 

They  were  not  mob  orators  or  revivalists.  They  were 
not  agitators.  They  were  not  social  radicals.  They 
saw  that  Ireland  was  intellectually  infantile,  that  the 
job  of  public  thinking  for  Ireland  could  never  be  done 
by  the  stolid,  selfish  English  parliament,  and  must 
be  done  by  Irishmen,  in  Ireland.  These  men  loved 
Ireland.  The  respected  and  understood  the  Gaelic 
period,  they  saw  that  Ireland's  present  state  was  due 
to  the  wreckage  of  savage  conquest  and  greedy  confis- 

261 


The  Story  of  the  Irish  Nation 

cation.  Iliey  knew  that  the  removal  of  this  wreckage 
would  only  be  accomplished  by  an  Ireland  with  brain 
and  muscle,  a  cool,  deliberate,  and  disciplined  Ireland. 
Dan  O'Connell  they  rather  despised.  He  was  warm, 
fluent,  optimistic,  grandiose,  uncritical.  They  were 
tired  of  him  and  his  theatrical  promises,  his  great 
glistening  green  foliage  and  his  barrenness  of  fruit.  As 
against  O'Connell  these  men  of  Young  Ireland  attuned 
themselves  to  the  new  world  of  republican  Europe  of 
'48.  They  went  to  Lamartine.  They  knew  German 
history  and  sympathized  with  the  German  movement. 
James  Clarence  Mangan,  a  poetic  genius,  influenced 
by  the  current  enthusiasm,  translated  from  the  Ger- 
man. The  iron  will  of  this  group  was  John  Mitchel,  son 
of  an  Ulster  Presbyterian  clergyman,  grandfather  of 
the  late  John  Mitchel,  Mayor  of  New  York.  He  wrote 
not  with  ink  but  with  corrosive.  He  was  mordant, 
grim,  eloquent,  unbending.  He  saw  the  scabbard  of 
liberalism  that  concealed  the  blade  of  England's  im- 
perialism, and  he  had  contempt  for  "old  Dan."  He 
was,  above  everything,  a  nationalist.  He  wrote  a 
passionate  "Life  of  Hugh  O'Neill."  He  wrote  a  "His- 
tory of  Ireland."  He  did  not  want  acts  of  parliament 
on  the  terms  of  Irish  subjection.  He  wanted,  like 
Wolfe  Tone,  to  resurrect  the  Irish  nation. 

262 


The  Land  War 


"The  Nation"  was  the  mouthpiece  of  this  desire.  In 
a  few  years  this  brilliant  sixpenny  paper  had  achieved 
a  circulation  of  10,000  a  week.  It  disliked  and 


John  Mitckel 


criticized  O'Connell's  apparent  belief  that  Ireland  was 
a  mere  annex  to  Irish  Catholicism.  It  did  not  believe 
in  boycotting  the  queen's  colleges.  They  were  neces- 
sary for  higher  education,  a  good  in  itself.  It  dis- 
liked his  pro-royalism  and  his  slobbering  loyalty.  It 

263 


The  Story  of  the  Irish  Nation 

had  no  great  sympathy  with  him  when,  in  spite  of  his 
loyalty,  he  was  tried  for  conspiracy  by  a  packed  jury 
after  the  break-up  of  the  repeal  meetings. 

With  John  Mitchel  in  their  counsels,  and  Thomas 
Francis  Meagher  and  Smith  O'Brien,  an  open  split 
had  come  with  O'Connell  in  1846  on  the  theoretic  ques- 
tion of  the  use  of  "physical  force."  The  death  of 
Thomas  Davis  from  scarlet  fever  in  1845  had  already 
removed  one  of  the  most  elevated  and  liberating  in- 
fluences that  was  ever  exercised  in  radical  Irish  poli- 
tics. But  even  this  wise  and  tolerant  nationalist  O'Con- 
nell had  rebuffed.  He  sought,  like  the  old  paternalist 
he  was,  to  subordinate  Young  Ireland  in  the  overbear- 
ing, dogmatic  manner  which  had  grown  on  him  for 
years. 

Those  who  seceded  from  O'Connell  on  the  policy  of 
physical  force  were  destined  to  divide  a  second  time. 
John  Mitchel  started  "The  United  Irishman"  as  a 
separatist,  revolutionary  journal,  leaving  "The  Na- 
tion" to  those  who  thought  the  advocacy  of  force  less 
expedient. 

Mitchel's  outspoken  enmity  to  England  led  to  his 
arrest  in  March,  1848.  O'Brien  and  Meagher,  taken 
at  the  same  time,  were  released  after  the  jury  disagreed. 
Mitchel  was  convicted  of  treason-felony.  He  was  sent 

264 


The  Land  War 

to  Tasmania  on  that  voyage  of  pained  separation  which 
gave  the  world  his  "Jail  Journal."  The  discharge  of 
O'Brien  and  Meagher  restored  the  lesser  men  to  their 
plans  for  direct  action.  The  famine,  however,  had  been 
another  Cromwell,  confiscating  life  rather  than  land. 
There  was  no  revolutionary  pulse  in  a  stricken  Ireland. 
In  August  a  few  hundred  men  followed  Smith  O'Brien 
in  an  insignificant  attack  on  a  small  body  of  police  at 
Ballingarry. 

This  display  of  physical  force  was  so  futile  that 
O'Brien  and  Meagher  were  not  executed.  Ireland  was 
helpless.  The  British  Government  rested  on  its  laurels. 
The  Young  Ireland  movement  went  underground. 


The  famine,  1846-49,  was  not  a  mere  accident.  It 
was  the  climax  of  political  and  economic  degradation. 
Up  to  that  time  the  modern  Irish  had  protested  and 
appealed  against  misgovernment,  but  they  had  not 
really  revolted.  They  had  not  killed  their  oppressors 
and  seized  control  of  their  destinies.  Now  their  quies- 
cence and  docility  escorted  them  to  death.  Daniel 
O'Connell  had  told  the  native  Irish  that  they  were  the 
finest  peasantry  on  earth.  A  Catholic  bishop  had 
rolled  his  eyes  to  heaven  because  the  good  creatures 

265 


The  Story  of  the  Irish  Nation 

had  "bravely  paid  their  rent."  John  O'Connell,  the 
Protector's  son,  had  said:  "I  thank  God  I  live  among 
a  people  who  would  rather  die  of  hunger  than  defraud 
the  landlords  of  their  rent!'*  (Why,  asked  Michael 
Davitt,  was  he  not  kicked  into  "the  sink  of  the  Lif- 
fey?")  The  Young  Irelanders  had  toyed  brightly 
with  the  name  of  revolution,  but  there  was  no  revolu- 
tion in  Ireland.  It  had  the  glazed  eye  of  starvation, 
the  cough  of  death. 

A  cry  was  wrung  from  Lord  John  Russell :  "We  have 
made  Ireland — I  speak  it  deliberately — we  have  made 
it  the  most  degraded  and  the  most  miserable  country 
in  the  world  .  .  .  All  the  world  is  crying  shame  upon 
us ;  but  we  are  equally  callous  to  our  ignominy,  and  to 
the  results  of  our  misgovernment." 

This  English  politician  out  of  office,  and  desiring 
office,  did  not  distract  the  Irish  nation  from  its  hideous 
catastrophe.  Ireland  sat  in  the  center  of  its  729,000 
dead,  musing  on  the  counsel  of  landlords  and  statesmen 
and  bishops.  A  nation  that  had  abounded  in  life  lost 
its  buoyancy.  A  nation's  laughter  died  within. 

When  the  people  knew  in  1846  that  the  potato  crop 
was  again  a  failure,  they  saw  their  doom.  A  kind  of 
stupor,  A.  M.  Sullivan  said,  "fell  upon  the  people,  con- 

266 


The  Land  War 

trasting  remarkably  with  the  fierce  energy  put  forth  a 
year  before.  It  was  no  uncommon  sight  to  see  the 
cottier  and  his  little  family  seated  on  the  garden  fence 
gazing  all  day  long  in  moody  silence  at  the  blighted 
plot  that  had  been  their  last  hope.  Nothing  could  rouse 
them.  You  spoke;  they  answered  not.  You  tried  to 
cheer  them;  they  shook  their  heads.  I  never  saw  so 
sudden  and  so  terrible  a  transformation." 

The  British  parliament  could  not,  and  did  not,  feel 
its  responsibility.  It  was  a  parliament  of  landlords 
and  bankers,  comfortable  men.  It  said :  This  famine  is 
creating  a  multitude  of  beggars ;  we  must  firmly  dis- 
courage beggars.  It  did  everything  it  could  to  regulate 
and  discipline  the  people  who  came  in  suppliant  thou- 
sands for  relief.  The  Government  required  that  men  in 
the  tremor  of  death  should  labor  to  build  useless  roads, 
useless  piers,  useless  mounds,  because  to  give  something 
for  nothing  was  to  pauperize,  and  to  build  useful  pub- 
lic works  might  interfere  with  "competition."  Govern- 
ment did  not  supervise  the  "coffin  ships"  which  bore 
away  the  famine  refugees  because  that,  also,  might  in- 
terfere with  competition.  One  vessel  taking  200  steer- 
age passengers  from  Sligo  to  Liverpool  packed  its  vic- 
tims so  close  in  the  hold  that  seventy-two  were  trampled 

267 


The  Story  of  the  Irish  Nation 

or  suffocated  to  death  before  the  short  voyage  was 
over.  That  was  one  incident  of  hundreds  of  incidents 
in  the  episode  of  1846-49. 

The  landed  gentry  in  some  cases  slaved  to  help  the 
people.  So  did  many  volunteers.  So  did  many  chari- 
table English  persons.  But  in  1846  alone  50,000  fami- 
lies— quarter  of  a  million  people — were  evicted  for  not 
paying  their  rents.  Their  huts  were  leveled  to  the  earth 
and  they  were  left  to  die.  During  those  hunger  years 
there  was  bountiful  food  in  sight  of  the  famine  victims. 
During  1846-49  the  English  imported  from  Ireland 
572,485  head  of  cattle;  839,118  sheep;  699,021  pigs; 
2,532,839  quarters  of  oats;  1,821,091  hundredweights 
of  oatmeal;  455,256  quarters  of  wheat;  1,494,852 
hundredweights  of  wheatmeal.  The  Irish  peasants  ate 
grass.  They  ate  seaweed.  They  ate  the  rotting  pota- 
toes. In  the  midst  of  plenty,  at  the  door  of  the  wealth- 
iest nation  in  the  world,  729,033  victims  died — more 
than  the  British  Empire  lost  in  the  four  years  of  the 
World  War.  Each  death  was  a  preventable  death. 
Each  death  was  due  to  causes  over  which  mankind  has 
control. 

3 

The  failure  of  England  to  prevent  or  avert  the  fam- 
ine was  the  beginning  of  acute  public  thinking  in 

268 


The  Land  War 

modern  Ireland.  Of  the  million  Irish  who  were 
wrenched  from  their  country  in  that  period  a  great 
number  were  filled  with  hatred  of  the  British  Govern- 
ment and  the  Anglo-Irish  landlord;  a  perceptible  num- 
ber were  also  filled  with  contempt  for  Irishmen  them- 
selves. The  craven  spirit  of  the  people,  their  ignorance, 
their  apathy,  their  despair,  generated  a  fierce  and  per- 
manent anger  in  the  manlier  Irishmen.  Thousands 
upon  thousands  had  needlessly  perished  from  starva- 
tion in  a  period  when  nearly  £50,000,000  worth  of 
available  foodstuff  had  left  the  rich  fields  of  Ireland. 
This  fact  nerved  intelligent  men  to  the  land  war  that 
was  to  follow. 

As  to  England,  the  famine  seemed  an  act  of  God, 
or  else  the  purging  of  overburdened  nature.  Only  at 
nightmare  moments,  seldom  permitted,  did  it  appear 
credible  that  England  had  originated,  enforced,  and 
protected  a  fatal  land  system.  The  more  insolent  Eng- 
lishman was  ready,  like  the  "London  Times,"  to  speak 
of  the  tragedy  in  terms  of  racial  hatred  and  contempt : 
"The  Celt  goes  to  yield  to  the  Saxon.  This  island  of 
one  hundred  and  sixty  harbors,  with  its  fertile  soil, 
with  noble  rivers  and  beautiful  lakes,  with  fertile  mines 
and  riches  of  every  kind,  is  being  cleared  quietly  for 
the  interests  and  luxury  of  humanity."  This  vicious 

269 


The  Story  of  the  Irish  Nation 

tone  was  not,  however,  the  tone  of  the  more  educated 
Englishman. 

He  saw  the  famine,  however,  in  terms  of  class.  He 
felt  quite  clear  that  Ireland,  like  England  itself,  was 
mainly  inhabited  by  "the  lower  orders  of  mankind." 
He  felt  that  the  "democracy,"  as  it  was  called,  was  the 
tedious  problem  of  the  upper  class,  and  that  both 
in  England  and  in  Ireland  it  was  primarily  important 
that  this  dangerous  democracy  be  kept  in  its  place. 
The  extension  of  the  suffrage,  the  development  of  edu- 
cation, the  multiplication  of  public  utilities  and  serv- 
ices— these  were,  on  the  whole,  very  debatable  and 
risky  reforms.  What  one  desired,  in  England  as  well 
as  in  Ireland,  was  the  right  moral  outlook  on  the  part 
of  the  people.  One  sought  a  loyal  and  devoted  yeo- 
manry, a  God-fearing  and  obedient  and  dutiful  people, 
a  people  that  went  in  for  no  nonsense  like  trade-unions 
or  combination,  that  respected  its  superiors,  reverenced 
its  church,  loved  its  gracious  sovereign,  and  knew  its 
place.  In  this  mood  the  feudal  upper  class  inspected 
the  lower  class.  The  tragedy  of  Ireland  was  that  the 
Irish  people  failed  to  be  (1)  dutiful,  and  (2)  a  sturdy 
English  yeomanry. 

But  this  aristocratic  landlord  attitude  was  not 
universal.  The  governing  class  was  almost  strong 

270 


The  Land  War 

enough,  a  few  years  later,  to  swing  England  for  the 
Southern  States  in  the  American  Civil  War.  The 
aristocracy  and  its  parasites,  full  of  class  prejudice, 
frankly  saw  Lincoln  as  a  baboon  or  gorilla.  Even 
Gladstone,  on  the  eve  of  liberalism,  favored  the  South. 
But  with  the  growing  industrialism  of  England  a  new 
public  opinion  had  also  begun  to  grow :  the  middle  class 
did  not  share  essentially  feudal  sympathies.  John 
Bright  was  to  stand  like  a  rock  for  the  North.  And 
the  middle  class  joined  him.  It  was  prosperous,  sober, 
practical,  peace-loving,  tending  toward  the  humane 
and  philanthropic,  and  attracting  toward  itself  some  of 
the  gentlemanly,  chivalrous  representatives  of  the  older 
order. 

It  was  Protestant  in  its  religion,  and  prone  to 
link  the  greatness  of  England  with  the  greatness  of 
Protestantism.  It  was,  in  general,  good-natured  and 
complacent.  It  regarded  the  Continent  of  Europe  as 
a  queer  and  wicked  place.  It  already  said  "Paris" 
with  a  wink,  and  "Rome"  with  a  shudder.  The  ap- 
prehensions of  the  Middle  Ages  were,  in  a  sense,  being 
recapitulated  by  the  emerging  Saxon.  But  in  John 
Stuart  Mill  and  the  lesser  utilitarians  there  was  a 
resolute  attempt  to  rise  above  prejudice,  and  to  see 
life  in  a  clear,  even  if  a  chilly,  light. 


The  Story  of  the  Irish  Nation 

4 

By  this  rising  liberalism  of  England,  Ireland  scarcely 
ever  was  considered  in  its  national  aspect.  It  was 
now  a  fixed  fact  in  the  liberal  English  mind  that  Ireland 
was  physically  and  historically  part  of  the  United 
Kingdom,  indissolubly  wedded.  It  was  also  a  fixed 
fact  that  the  native  Irish  were  distressful  and  trouble- 
some. But,  granting  the  difficulty  of  the  Irish  tempera- 
ment, the  English  liberal  felt  that  something  ought  to 
be  conceded  to  the  Irish  in  time.  How  much?  This 
conundrum  was  strictly  concerned  with  the  "conces- 
sion" of  self-government.  That  Ireland  should  want 
separation  from  England  was  already  unthinkable. 
Neither  liberal  nor  conservative  politician  mentioned 
separation  except  as  a  diabolical  and  half-savage  idea, 
generated  only  in  the  brains  of  treason-criminals.  As 
the  empire  grew  wealthier  and  acquired  more  territory, 
this  notion  of  the  wickedness  of  separatism  steadily  in- 
tensified. 

Separatism,  indeed,  was  in  no  man's  mind  im- 
mediately after  the  famine.  The  prudent  Irish  pro- 
gram, as  represented  by  Cardinal  Cullen,  was  to  at- 
tempt, without  O'Connell's  personality,  to  continue  the 
O'Connell  compromise  in  the  house  of  commons.  In 

272 


The  Land  War 

complete  disagreement  with  this  program  were  Gavan 
Duffy,  the  Young  Irelander;  George  Henry  Moore,  a 
landlord  whose  son  became  famous  as  George  Moore  the 
novelist ;  and  Sharman  Crawford  and  Frederic  Lucas. 
These  men  knew  that  Ireland  could  gain  nothing  by 
sending  to  London  a  handful  of  Whig  parliamen- 
tarians. Such  loose  representatives  could  too  easily  be 
bought  off  with  a  judgeship  or  a  job  at  the  Castle. 
The  radicals  realized  that  in  this  emergency  Ireland 
needed  a  parliamentary  party  consciously  independent 
of  all  opposition,  and  behind  it  a  tenants'  organization 
in  Ireland. 

The  tenants'  organization  was  especially  needed  be- 
cause, after  the  famine,  an  Encumbered  Estates  Act 
had  been  passed  to  enable  landlords  to  sell  out.  By  this 
process,  it  was  hoped,  a  number  of  unencumbered  Scot- 
tish and  English  proprietors  could  start  anew.  They 
did  start  anew  with  three  years  of  "clearance."  Nearly 
200,000  families  were  uprooted,  compelled  to  go  to  the 
workhouse  or  to  leave  Ireland.  These  inhuman  clear- 
ances, even  more  than  the  artificial  famine,  filled  the 
Irish  peasants  with  indignation.  But  their  secret  so- 
ciety of  Ribbonmen  was  banned  by  the  church,  and 
within  a  few  years  Duffy's  league  was  captured  by  the 
conservatives,  who  became  known  in  parliament  as  the 

273 


The  Story  of  the  Irish  Nation 

Pope's  Brass  Band.  "Three-fourths  of  the  representa- 
tives elected  by  the  people,'*  said  Duffy,  "assented  in 
silence  [to  this  extermination  policy]  and  three-fourths 
of  the  bishops,  born  and  bred  among  them,  sanctioned 
the  perfidy." 

Cardinal  Cullen  was  not  fortunate  in  his  parlia- 
mentary party.  Sadleir  and  Keogh,  the  leaders  of  it, 
could  not  stand  temptation.  Of  their  group,  "one  was 
a  forger,  and  committed  suicide;  the  other  was  a  forger, 
and  was  expelled  from  parliament;  the  third  was  a 
swindler,  and  fled;  and  the  fourth  was  made  a  judge." 

Gavan  Duffy  sailed  for  Australia  in  1855.  "There 
is  no  more  hope  for  Ireland,"  he  said  of  his  period, 
"than  for  a  corpse  on  the  dissecting-table." 


Ireland,  in  reality,  was  not  like  a  corpse.  It  was 
like  the  dumb  victim  of  a  shattering  accident.  But 
after  that  accident  its  weakness  was  not  so  great  as  it 
seemed.  Though  the  total  number  of  living  Irish  had 
been  reduced  to  possibly  eight  million,  the  Irish  were 
now  implanted  in  Canada,  Australia,  England,  and 
above  all  the  United  States.  They  did  not  lose  their 
desire  to  help  Ireland.  The  agony  of  emigration  was 
in  many  cases  only  sentimental.  It  transferred  to  the 

274 


The  Land  War 

broad  shoulders  of  the  United  States  the  burden  of 
illiteracy  and  technical  backwardness  which  had  been 
created  by  bad  English  government.  By  the  shifting 
of  this  burden  the  Irish  were  the  gainers.  In  a  few 
years  the  children  of  1848  were  grown,  and  they  were 
men  with  more  material  resources,  a  better  smattering 
of  education,  and  a  livelier  will  than  any  group  of 
native  Irishmen  had  possessed  for  many  years.  Their 
will,  indeed,  often  outran  their  sagacity,  yet  it  was  only 
by  the  combination  of  Irish  and  American  Irish  that  the 
liberation  of  the  Irish  tenant  was  at  last  to  be  secured. 
The  Irish  and  Anglo-Irish  landlords  resisted  land  agi- 
tation even  more  than  the  British  Government.  The 
whetstone  of  the  land  movement  was  supplied  by  the 
Fenians.  This  society  sprang  from,  a  small  group 
called  together  in  New  York  as  the  Emmet  Monument 
Association,  in  1854.  The  men  most  prominent  in  this 
group  were  '48  insurgents — John  O'Mahony,  Michael 
Doheny,  and  others.  And  they  joined,  through  James 
Stephens,  with  the  I.  R.  B.,  or  Irish  Republican 
Brotherhood,  which  was  founded  in  Dublin  in  1858. 

James  Stephens,  born  in  Kilkenny  in  1828,  had  es- 
caped to  France  after  the  fiasco  of  '48.  There  he  at 
first  supported  himself  by  the  grim  labor  of  translating 
Dickens  into  French.  The  great  lesson  which  the 

275 


The  Story  of  the  Irish  Nation 

failure  of  Young  Ireland  had  impressed  on  this  ener- 
getic, handsome,  arrogant  man  was  the  weakness  of  in- 
tellectual middle-class  propaganda.  He  made  up  his 
mind,  according  to  Michael  Davitt,  that  he  would  rely 
solely  on  the  "common  people"  in  building  up  the 
I.  R.  B.  He  spent  1858  and  1859  scouring  Ireland  to 
recruit  the  young  men  for  this  secret  society,  to  which 
America  was  to  supply  arms.  The  work  attracted  the 
more  adventurous  and  the  wilder  temperaments. 
O'Donovan  Rossa  of  Skibbereen  was  one  of  his  aides. 
John  O'Leary  and  Thomas  Clarke  Luby  were  two  of 
his  intellectuals.  A  sensational  impetus,  fostered  by 
Stephens,  was  given  in  the  funeral  of  a  '48  man,  Ter- 
ence Bellew  McManus,  conducted  from  San  Francisco 
to  Dublin  as  a  national  memorial.  In  the  United 
States,  Stephens  placed  the  Fenian  Brotherhood  "in 
proper  auxiliary  relation  with  the  home  organization." 
During  the  early  stages  of  the  Civil  War  he  was  busy 
among  the  Irish-American  regiments  working  at  the 
front  and  having  "free  access  both  to  the  Federal  and 
Confederate  forces."  He  returned  to  Ireland,  and,  as 
Michael  Davitt  caustically  remarks,  "founded  a  news- 
paper to  be  a  mouthpiece  for  a  secret  organization." 

It  was  Stephens's  belief  that  he  could  promise  a  ris- 
ing.   He  had  his  connections  all  over  the  United  States, 

276 


The  Land  War 

in  South  America,  in  Paris,  London,  Glasgow,  Liver- 
pool, Manchester.  He  had  a  great  number  of  Fenians 
in  the  British  army.  "The  Irish  People,'*  run  by 
O'Leary  and  Luby,  was  filled  with  "wicked  diatribes" 
such  as:  "I  am  free  to  admit  that  Thuggism  has  never 
produced  the  death  by  starvation  of  two  millions  of 
people,  and  is  therefore,  compared  to  Irish  aristocracy, 
a  harmless  institution."  But  "The  Irish  People"  gave 
Dublin  Castle  the  excuse  it  needed.  By  swooping  down 
on  it  in  good  time  the  Government  upset  the  Fenian 
game.  It  filled  Ireland  with  troops.  It  arrested 
Stephens.  Through  Fenian  aid  Stephens  made  a  dra- 
matic escape  and  promised  a  rising  in  1866,  but  the 
English,  unusually  alert,  squelched  every  move  or  even 
sign  of  insurgent  activity.  So  far  as  Ireland  was  con- 
cerned, the  Government  was  crowned  with  success.  And 
yet  Fenianism  made  a  startling  impression  elsewhere. 

6 

This  was  in  England.  In  September,  1867,  a  prison- 
van  containing  two  leading  Fenians  was  ambushed  on 
its  way  through  Manchester,  and  the  prisoners  enabled 
to  escape.  A  police  sergeant,  refusing  to  give  up  the 
keys,  was  killed  by  the  single  shot  that  was  fired  to 
blow  open  the  lock.  Five  youths  in  the  party  were 

277 


The  Story  of  the  Irish  Nation 

seized.  Three  of  them — Allen,  Larkin,  and  O'Brien — 
were  found  guilty  of  murder.  They  met  their  sentence 
with  the  cry,  "God  save  Ireland!'*  There  was  much 
public  protest  before  they  were  hanged.  "The  trial," 
said  T.  P.  O'Connor,  "took  place  amid  a  hurricane  of 
public  passion  and  panic."  Its  effect  was  greatly  deep- 
ened by  an  attempt  in  December  to  free  Ricard  O'Sul- 
livan  Burke  from  Clerkenwell  Prison,  in  London.  The 
idea  in  this  criminally  reckless  exploit  was  to  blow  a 
hole  in  the  prison-wall  with  a  barrel  of  gunpowder. 
The  barrel  was  misplaced,  however,  and  twelve  poor 
people  were  killed  and  more  than  one  hundred  injured. 
The  Irish  famine  made  far  less  impression  on  the  bulk 
of  middle-class  England  than  the  Clerkenwell  explosions 
and  the  executions  of  Allen,  Larkin,  and  O'Brien. 
These  two  affairs,  both  occurring  in  1867,  stirred  a  new 
England.  It  was,  in  part,  the  England  of  no-popery, 
race  hatred,  and  race  contempt.  But  it  was  also  an 
England  politically  virginaj;  With  its  great  industrial 
connections  in  Scotland  and  Wales,  it  was,  on  the  whole, 
quite  different  from  the  old-fashioned  country  which 
had  always  supported  the  lord,  the  bishop,  and  the 
squire.  Fed  by  the  same  newspapers  and  looking  to 
the  same  parliament,  it  still  beheld  in  Fenianism  a 
problem  which  it  could  not  quite  understand.  It  felt 

278 


The  Land  War 

astonishment  at  the  outrages,  and  indignation  and  fear. 
It  also  felt  curiosity.  Politically-minded  men  woke 
up  to  this  change.  They  discovered  that  one  barrel 
of  gunpowder  exploded  inside  the  city  of  London  does 
infallibly  promote  thinking.  John  Bright  shook  Eng- 
land. He  declared  that  he  did  not  consider  the  execu- 
tion of  the  "Manchester  Martyrs"  just.  Not  so  long 
afterward  he  said  of  Ireland  in  general:  "Force  is  no 
remedy."  And  Gladstone  not  so  long  afterward  made 
the  tremendous  admission  that  there  was  more  in  Feni- 
anism  than  Irish  wickedness. 

This  carefully  guarded  utterance  came  in '  1869. 
In  1868  Lord  Stanley,  standing  closer  to  the  Fenian 
outbursts,  had  confessed  "tfie  painful,  the  dangerous, 
the  discreditable  state  of  tnings  that  unhappily  con- 
tinues to  exist  in  Ireland."  English  public  opinion, 
it  is  clear,  was  at  last  bestirring  itself,  after  centuries 
of  that  stone-age  policy  which  is  more  politely  termed 

imperialism. 

7 

What  did  Gladstone  see  when  he  himself  rubbed  his 
eyes  and  woke  up,  in  1868? 

The  policy  of  England-in-Ireland  since  1801  had 
been  suppressive,  except  in  Melbourne's  time.  Peel,  a 
capable,  stiff  administrator,  had  substituted  paid 

279 


The  Story  of  the  Irish  Nation 

magistrates  and  an  imperial  constabulary  for  unre- 
liable and  irregular  military  forces.  By  this  means 
Dublin  Castle  had  been  given  eyes  and  ears  everywhere. 
A  complete  espionage  system  enabled  the  Government 
to  control  explosive  nationalism:  the  insurrections  of 
1848  and  1867  had  "been  instantly  curbed.  But  the 
skill  of  the  Government  in  paralyzing  national  feeling 
could  only  be  compared  to  the  skill  of  a  guard  who 
keeps  a  prisoner  in  manacles.  The  triumph  of  the 
Government  was  simply  to  illustrate  the  unsuccessful 
paroxysms  of  Ireland  attempting  to  escape.  And  the 
insurrections  of  1803,  1848,  1867,  had  to  be  accom- 
panied by  stories  of  tithe  war,  Ribbonmen,  Orange 
disturbances,  famines,  and  vast  clearances.  The  legend 
of  the  so-called  union  was  one  which  mocked  every  pre- 
tense of  consent: 

1800-01.     Insurrection  Act,  Suspension  of  Habeas  Corpus,  Martial 
Law. 

1803.  Insurrection  Act. 

1804.  Habeas  Corpus  Suspended. 

1807-10.  Insurrection  Act,  Martial  Law,  and  Habeas  Corpus  Sus- 
pended. 

1814.  Habeas  Corpus  Suspended. 

1814-18.  Insurrection  Act. 

1822-24.  Habeas  Corpus  Suspended,  Insurrection  Act. 

1825-28.  Act  Suppressing  Catholic  Association. 

1830.  Arms  Act. 

1831-32.  Stanley's  Arms  Act. 

1832.  Arms  and  Gunpowder  Act. 

1833.  Suppression  of  Disturbance. 

1834.  Disturbance  Amended. 
1834.  Arms  and  Gunpowder  Act. 

280 


The  Land  War 

1835.  Public  Peace  Act. 

1836.  Arms  Act. 

1838.  Arms  Act. 

1839.  Unlawful  Oaths  Act. 

1840.  Arms  Act. 

1841.  Outrages  Act. 
1841.  Arms  Act. 
1843.  Arms  Act. 

1843.  Act  Consolidating  Coercion  Acts. 

1844.  Unlawful  Oaths  Act 

1845.  Constabulary  Enlargement. 

1845.  Unlawful  Oaths  Act. 

1846.  Constabulary  Enlargement. 

1847.  Crime  and  Outrage. 

1848-49.  Habeas    Corpus   Suspension,   Crime   and   Outrage,   Re- 
moval of  Arms,  Treason  amendment. 

1850-55.  Crime  and  Outrage. 

1856-64.  Peace  Preservation  Act. 

1866-68.  Habeas  Corpus  Suspension. 


These  triumphs  of  government  under  the  Union, 
listed  by  Michael  Davitt  and  Barry  O'Brien,  show  the 
continuance  of  coercion.  And  the  Coercion  Acts  were 
by  no  means  improperly  named.  "Many  of  them  abol- 
ished trial  by  jury,  some  of  them  established  martial 
law;  transportation,  flogging,  death,  were  the  ordinary 
sentences."  (T.  P.  O'Connor.)  Daniel  O'Connell 
said:  "I  have  known  instances  where  men  have  been 
nearly  flogged  to  death."  The  whole  ludicrous  and 
hideous  panorama  simply  illustrated  Dean  Swift's  text 
of  1720:  "In  reason  all  government  without  the  con- 
sent of  the  governed  is  the  very  definition  of  slavery: 
but  in  fact  eleven  men  well  armed  will  certainly  subdue 
one  single  man  in  his  shirt." 

281 


The  Story  of  the  Irish  Nation 

The  counterpart  of  this  picture  of  suppression  is 
Davitt's  list  of  remedial  land  legislation.  Of  the 
twenty-three  bills  introduced  from  1829  to  1858,  none 

was  passed. 

8 

What  did  this  mean?  It  meant,  when  Gladstone 
looked  at  it  with  the  reverberation  of  Clerkenwell  in 
his  ears,  that  British  government  in  Ireland  had  never 
become  civilized,  that  the  Irish  resented  and  hated  it, 
that  the  Union  was  a  failure.  It  meant,  moreover, 
that  John  Bright's  words  in  1849  were  true:  "When 
law  refuses  its  duty;  when  government  denies  the  right 
of  the  people;  when  competition  is  so  fierce  for  the 
little  land  which  the  monopolists  grant  to  cultivation 
in  Ireland;  when,  in  fact,  millions  are  scrambling  for 
the  potato — these  people  are  driven  back  from  law,  and 
from  the  usages  of  civilization,  to  that  which  is  termed 
the  law  of  nature,  and  if  not  the  strongest,  the  laws 
of  the  vindictive ;  and  in  this  case  the  people  of  Ireland 
believe,  to  my  certain  knowledge,  that  it  is  only  by 
these  acts  of  vengeance,  periodically  committed,  that 
they  can  hold  in  suspense  the  arm  of  the  proprietor,  of 
the  landlord,  and  the  agent,  who,  in  too  many  cases, 
would,  if  he  dared,  exterminate  them.  Don't  let  us 
disguise  it  from  ourselves ;  there  is  a  war  between  land- 


The  Land  War 


lord   and  tenant — a   war   as  fierce  and   relentless   as 
though  it  were  carried  on  by  force  of  arms." 

Were   the  native   Irish   perverse   to   make   it   war? 
Never,  until  Gladstone  came  to  power,  was  any  toler- 


WilHam  E /Gladstone 


able  alternative  offered  to  these  Irish.  They  were  in- 
vited, indeed,  to  think  of  themselves  as  English.  They 
were  given  an  English  established  church,  English 
school-books  in  the  "national"  schools,  an  English 
queen  and  English  loyalty.  But  the  fact  that  they 

283 


The  Story  of  the  Irish  Nation 

were  not  West  Britons  resulted  in  an  impasse  between 
the  administration,  the  legislature,  the  landlord  gar- 
rison, and  themselves.  The  native  Irish  had  no  option 
except  to  resist  or  to  fight,  until  W.  E.  Gladstone  rose 
up  in  the  house  of  commons. 

The  fact  that  an  English  statesman  of  Gladstone's 
caliber  had  at  last,  after  centuries  of  evasion,  spoken 
about  this  shabby,  unpopular  cause,  was  a  turning- 
point  in  Irish  history. 

Gladstone  was  not  pro-national.  He  had  no  idea  of 
giving  Ireland  national  independence.  He  knew  vir- 
tually nothing  of  the  Gaelic  past.  He  never  set  his 
foot  in  Ireland  until  he  was  sixty-eight  years  old,  and 
then  his  visit  "lasted  little  more  than  three  weeks,  and 
did  not  extend  beyond  a  very  decidedly  English  pale." 
Though. forty  years  old  at  the  time  of  the  famine,  that 
event  had  made  no  real  impression  on  him,  and  in  1853 
he  himself  blithely  began  the  overtaxation  of  Ireland. 
This  "fiscal  iniquity,"  which  was  exposed  by  a  Liberal 
commission  in  1896,  was  part  of  his  "carnal  satisfac- 
tion at  abundant  revenue."  But  with  these  limitations 
and  qualifications,  the  great  fact  remains  about  Glad- 
stone that  he  had  turned  on  Ireland  his  capacious, 
ominous,  cavernous  political  gaze. 

What  he  saw  was  not  a  sick  nationality,  for  all  his 


The  Land  War 

Italian  sympathies.  What  he  chose  to  see,  in  the  first 
instance,  was  merely  a  large  Catholic  community  with 
a  Protestant  church  established  over  it,  a  large  Catho- 
lic community  without  a  university,  and  a  large  Catho- 
lic community  with  a  bad  land  system.  What  he  un- 
dertook to  tackle  first  was  the  established  church.  It 
fell  at  the  first  grapple. 

9 

The  established  church  had  easily  survived  the  tithe 
war,  in  which  police,  Lancers,  Highlanders,  and  artil- 
lery had  on  occasion  been  necessary  to  seize  a  single 
cow  that  no  one  would  afterward  buy.  But  the  estab- 
lishment could  not  withstand  any  rational  assault  from 
an  English  statesman  with  backing.  In  1861  there 
were  5,800,000  people  in  Ireland.  Of  these  only 
690,000  were  Protestants.  It  was  the  Catholics,  in 
the  main,  who  were  forced  to  support  the  church.  One 
of  the  great,  and  of  course  conscientious,  purposes  of 
the  establishment  had  been  to  convert  the  papists. 
To  this  their  own  pennies  were  applied.  But  even  in 
the  famine  time,  when  "bread  and  Protestantism  were 
offered  to  the  starving  in  the  same  hand,"  as  Locker- 
Lampson  puts  it,  the  converts  were  not  worth  count- 
ing, or  having.  The  prosperity  of  the  established 

285 


The  Story  of  the  Irish  Nation 

church  had  not,  however,  been  seriously  affected.  For 
1400  benefices  it  had,  during  the  tithe  war,  an  income 
of  £600,000  a  year.  For  twenty-two  overpaid  bishops 
its  income  amounted  to  the  vast  sum  of  £150,000  a 
year.  This  abnormality  could  not  survive  serious 
political  inspection.  The  Orangemen,  whose  clergy- 
men had  received  an  annual  grant,  objected  to  dis- 

• 

establishment.  The  Rev.  Mr.  Flanagan  declared,  "If 
they  ever  dare  to  lay  unholy  hands  upon  the  church, 
200,000  Orangemen  will  tell  them  it  shall  never  be." 
The  disestablishment  went  through  quite  without  trou- 
ble. The  property  of  the  church,  mainly  confiscated 
land,  was  worth  fourteen  million  pounds.  The  vested 
interests  of  the  church  were  all  respected,  and  capital 
was  left  over  for  land-purchase,  rent-arrears,  and  vari- 
ous other  humane  provisions:  £1,000,000  was  eventu- 
ally devoted  to  intermediate  or  secondary  education. 

10 

Once  Gladstone  began  to  bring  Ireland  into  liberal 
focus  he  had  his  work  cut  out  for  him.  He  was  told 
that  he  was  destroying  the  constitution.  He  reminded 
his  hearers  that  eight  times  within  his  own  recollection 
the  constitution  had  been  wholly  ruined  and  destroyed. 
He  realized,  in  truth,  that  if  the  constitution  was  to  be 

286 


The  Land  War 

saved,  it  could  only  be  saved  by  tackling  this  question 
of  Ireland.  Fifteen  years  before  he  even  murmured 
home  rule  Gladstone  honestly  faced  the  English  aspect 
of  Ireland:  "The  state  of  Ireland  after  seven  hundred 
years  of  our  tutelage  is  in  my  opinion  so  long  as  it 
continues  an  intolerable  disgrace,  and  a  danger  so  abso- 
lutely transcending  all  others,  that  I  call  it  the  only 
real  danger  of  the  noble  empire  of  the  queen."  So,  in 
1870,  he  told  Lord  Granville. 

His  conviction  was,  in  great  degree,  the  result  of 
Fenianism.  But  England  itself  had  to  have  a  much 
larger  dose  of  Fenianism  before  it  would  wake  up. 
Gladstone's  first  Land  Bill  was  almost  as  hopeless  a 
straddle  as  his  Irish  University  Bill.  This,  however, 
was  certain:  He  no  longer  disguised  to  himself  the 
cardinal  fact  that  the  state  of  Ireland  was  the  "ulti- 
mate result  of  our  misgovernment." 

The  state  of  Ireland,  in  reality,  was  economically 
and  socially  rotten.  Those  who  saw  land  simply  as 
property  and  who  looked  on  English  government 
mainly  as  a  device  to  protect  English  property  in  Ire- 
land could  never  understand  the  unhealthy  condition 
of  Ireland.  They  asked:  Why  can't  the  Irish  look  on 
land  tenure  as  a  simple  case  of  contract,  the  tenant 
taking  his  lease  and  the  landlord  taking  his  rent  ?  The 

287 


The  Story  of  the  Irish  Nation 

unreasonableness  of  the  Irish  appeared  clear  to  thou- 
sands of  well-meaning  Englishmen.  Gladstone  had  to 
take  his  pointer  in  hand.  He  had  to  explain  to  his 
own  cabinet,  bit  by  bit,  that  Ireland  had  never  come 
to  accept  the  landlord,  especially  the  absentee  land- 
lord, as  the  owner  of  the  land.  It  was  the  tenants,  the 
cultivators,  who  had  themselves  reclaimed  the  swamp, 
dug  the  drain,  hauled  the  manure,  built  the  wall,  raised 
the  house.  The  land  to  them  was  their  sole  means  of 
vital  production,  and  they,  the  rude  peasants,  had 
given  the  land  its  "working  value."  They  looked  on  the 
landlord  in  most  cases  as  an  alien  usurper.  In  the  best 
case  they  saw  in  him  only  a  part-proprietor,  a  man 
entitled  to  receive  rent  but  not  entitled  to  anything 
more.  The  transfer  of  the  land  from  one  tenant  to 
another  was,  in  the  cultivators'  view,  a  transfer  involv- 
ing- the  improvements.  And  the  tenants  set  their 
hearts  on  three  things:  fair  rent,  fixity  of  tenure,  and 
free  sale.  Only  with  these  guarantees  could  they  be 
secure  against  eviction,  famine,  enslavement.  And  no 
matter  how  many  imperial  laws  and  how  many  imperial 
police  and  troops,  how  many  Arms  Acts  and  Coercion 
Acts,  were  to  girdle  the  landlord,  the  war  for  their 
Magna  Charta  must  go  irresistibly  on.  In  this  war, 
as  the  Irish  peasants  saw  it,  they  fought  with  a  worse 

288 


The  Land  War 

enemy  in  the  rear  than  in  front.  If  the  alien  parlia- 
ment, the  alien  constabulary,  the  alien  judge,  threat- 
ened the  advance  of  the  tenant,  he  knew  that  behind 
him  was  the  bottomless  pit  of  famine.  He  was  not,  in 
any  case,  becoming  a  millionaire  out  of  his  occupation. 
It  was  all  he  could  do  to  support  himself  on  potatoes, 
skim  milk,  perhaps  American  bacon  and  American 
flour,  in  the  simplest,  the  ugliest,  the  meanest,  of 
houses.  The  feudal  aristocrats  against  whom  he  went 
into  combat,  and  the  new  mercantile  proprietors,  had  a 
somewhat  higher  standard  of  living.  The  dispropor- 
tion of  his  sacrifices,  against  the  lurid  background  of 
his  history,  made  the  Irish  tenant  unconquerable  once 
he  became  organized. 

11 

While  he  was  still  fighting  instinctively  against  the 
machines  of  the  law  which  the  landlord  set  in  motion, 
a  curious  development  was  taking  place  in  the  political 
field.  Since  the  beginning  of  the  "eighteenth  century 
the  Protestant  Anglo-Irishman  had  been  slowly  and 
surely  driven  into  protest  against  English  misgovern- 
ment.  Swift,  Grattan,  and  Flood  were  not  Irishmen; 
they  were  the  sons  of  English  clerks  and  officials  in  Ire- 
land. But  in  precisely  the  same  way  that  the  colonists 

289 


The  Story  of  the  Irish  Nation 

in  America  had  rebelled  against  arrogant  privilege, 
these  Anglo-Irish  rebelled  against  it  in  Ireland.  The 
spirit  of  1782  was  the  spirit  of  Washington  and  Frank- 
lin, except  that  the  Anglo-Irish  colonists  held  on  to  the 
"connection"  because  of  the  inimical  native  Irish. 

Ever  since  that  revolt  of  the  Anglo-Irish,  two  con- 
trary processes  had  been  working:  (1)  the  process  of 
weaving  the  native  Irish  into  the  "connection"  with 
Britain;  (2)  the  process  of  weaving  the  Anglo-Irish 
into  the  policy  of  separation.  The  emphasis  in  the 
first  case  was  on  the  British  constitution  and  the  need 
of  a  new  constitution  granting  autonomy  or  self-gov- 
ernment. In  the  second  case  the  emphasis  was  on 
Irish  nationality.  The  behavior  of  England  had  never 
driven  Grattan  completely  into  the  Irish  nationality. 
Excellent  administrators  like  Thomas  Drummond  un- 
derstood nationality  but  advocated  home  rule,  and 
O'Connell  himself  had  no  real  desire  except  for  self- 
government. 

The  Irish  Catholics,  it  is  true,  had  no  monopoly  of 
national  or  separatist  spirit.  Before  1798  the  Ulster 
Presbyterians — Henry  Joy  McCracken,  Russell,  Orr — 
were  republicans  first  of  all,  but  Wolfe  Tone,  Robert 
Emmet,  Lord  Edward  Fitzgerald,  were  Protestant 
Irish  nationalists.  So,  in  1848,  the  cause  of  nation- 

290 


The  Land  War 

ality  was  uncompromisingly  urged  by  the  son  of  an 
Ulster  Presbyterian  clergyman,  John  Mitchel;  by 
the  son  of  a  Welsh  Protestant,  Thomas  Davis; 
by  men  of  non-Gaelic  name  like  Kickham  and 
Stephens.  The  fact  remained,  however,  that  the  desire 
for  home  rule  flourished  in  many  Anglo-Irishmen  who 
had  no  separatist  feeling.  And  now,  under  the  leader- 
ship of  an  Ulster  Protestant,  the  son  of  a  clergyman, 
another  drive  was  to  be  made  in  the  direction  of  self- 
government. 

This  extremely  amiable  and  gifted  Ulsterman,  Isaac 
Butt,  had  once  debated  in  favor  of  the  Union  against 
O'Connell.  But  when  Gladstone  had  disestablished  the 
church,  in  contempt  of  the  Union,  Butt  and  a  group 
of  irate  Protestant  conservatives  met  in  Dublin  in 
1870  and  propounded  the  theory  that  "the  true  remedy 
for  the  evils  of  Ireland  is  the  establishment  of  an  Irish 
parliament  with  full  control  over  our  domestic  affairs." 

A  Trinity  College  professor  suggested  the  name 
Home  Rule  for  this  venture,  and  so  Home  Rule  was 
launched.  Its  immediate  popularity  in  Ireland  meant 
nothing,  however,  to  liberal  England.  "Can  any  sen- 
sible man,  can  any  rational  man,"  asked  Gladstone  in 
withering  tones  next  year,  "suppose  that  at  this  time 
of  day,  in  this  condition  of  the  world,  we  are  going  to 

291 


The  Story  of  the  Irish  Nation 

disintegrate  the  great  capital  institutions  of  the  coun- 
try for  the  purpose  of  making  ourselves  ridiculous  in 
the  sight  of  all  mankind,  and  crippling  any  power  we 
possess  for  bestowing  benefits,  through  legislation,  on 
the  country  to  which  we  belong?" 

The  rottenness  of  electioneering  in  Ireland,  under  a 
franchise  which  polled  about  90,000  voters  out  of 
5,500,000  people,  made  any  attempt  at  a  constitutional 
movement  absurd.  But,  in  spite  of  an  illiteracy  in  Ire- 
land that  in  1895  still  affected  40,000  voters  out  of  a 
total  of  220,000,  the  Ballot  Act  of  1870  enabled  the 
Irish  tenant  at  last  to  vote  "without  the  fear  of  evic- 
tion, with  the  attendant  risks  of  hunger,  exile  or 
death."  (T.  P.  O'Connor.)  In  thus  vindicating  his 
belief  in  "public  liberty,"  Gladstone  paved  the  way 
for  the  colossal  popular  agitation  which  engrossed  the 
rest  of  his  life. 

Isaac  Butt  did  not  arouse  Ireland  on  Home  Rule. 
He  was  a  man  of  penetrating  mind  and  high  integrity, 
but  he  was  one  of  those  advocates  of  self-government 
who  never  learn  to  govern  the  self.  He  was  a  large, 
lax,  simple  man,  extremely  good-natured  and  easy- 
going. He  was  everybody's  friend,  incapable  of  mak- 
ing a  budget  either  of  his  time  or  his  money,  and  not 
even  able  to  keep  two  steps  in  front  of  the  debtor's  jail. 

292 


The  Land  War 

In  the  election  of  1874  he  enlisted  A.  M.  Sullivan, 
Joseph  Biggar,  Richard  Power,  and  some  other  nation- 
alists, but  he  also  enlisted  a  number  of  genteel,  con- 
servative squires  who  went  to  the  imperial  parliament 
mainly  for  its  social  distinction. 


It  was  in  this  party,  and  under  the  lymphatic  lead- 
ership of  Isaac  Butt,  that  Parnell  entered  the  house  of 
commons. 

Like  Robert  Emmet,  Charles  Stewart  Parnell  was 
the  descendant  of  a  Cromwellian.  Parnell  the  poet  and 
the  incorruptible  Irish  chancellor,  Sir  John  Parnell, 
were  his  two  most  distinguished  antecedents.  His 
father,  John  Henry  Parnell,  was  of  the  landed  gentry 
in  Wicklow,  a  quiet  and  undistinguished  man.  Par- 
nell's  mother,  however,  was  a  decided  and  spirited  per- 
sonality, the  daughter  of  Commodore  Charles  Stewart, 
"Old  Ironsides,"  of  the  American  navy.  Parnell's 
father  met  her  on  a  tour  in  America  in  1834,  and 
brought  her  back  to  Ireland.  She  bore  him  eleven 
children,  her  son  Charles  Stewart  Parnell  being  born 
in  1846. 

When  Parnell  entered  the  house  of  commons  he  was 
not  yet  thirty.  He  was  in  no  sense  a  traditional  Irish- 

293 


The  Story  of  the  Irish  Nation 

man.  He  was  tall,  of  slim  American  build,  unassuming 
and  reticent  in  manner,  and  stately  in  bearing.  He 
had  gone  to  Cambridge  University,  and  he  had  the 


Charles   Stewart  Parnell 


accent  and  the  style  of  the  Anglo-Irish  gentleman. 
No  eye  discerned  in  him  a  popular  leader,  or  anything 
but  a  young  squire  turned  Home  Ruler. 

Parnell's  public  career  was  short.     He  died  at  forty- 
five  years  of  age,  in  1891.     But  curtailed  as  it  was, 

294 


The  Land  War 

and  little  effort  as  he  made  to  court  personal  favor, 
he  did  more  to  change  the  fortunes  of  the  entire  Irish 
nation  than  any  of  its  previous  popular  leaders. 

He  found  the  native  Irish  in  the  grip  of  the  feudal 
system.  He  knew  that  the  brain  which  controlled  the 
feudal  hand  was  in  England,  in  the  British  cabinet. 
By  the  policy  which  he  developed,  and  the  inflexible 
will  with  which  he  applied  his  policy,  Parnell  operated 
on  British  politics  as  no  Irishman  had  operated  before 
him.  He  saw  Britain  and  British  methods  with  the 
eye  of  a  military  engineer.  As  a  cold  realist  he  forged 
the  weapon  he  needed  out  of  the  Irish  parliamentary 
party.  His  use  of  that  weapon  was  military.  He 
changed  the  house  of  commons  from  a  pompous  court- 
room in  which  Ireland  was  periodically  pronounced 
guilty  into  a  battle-field  on  which  Ireland  put  Britain 
on  the  defensive.  By  his  program  of  attack  he  con- 
vinced Englishmen,  as  nothing  else  had  done  since 
Elizabeth,  that  Ireland  was  an  "inveterate  wound  m 
the  flank"  of  their  country.  He  made  that  wound  bite 
and  rankle.  He  educated  Britain  in  its  pretension,  its 
sluggish  complacency,  its  insolence,  its  condescension. 
His  attack  was  contemptuous  and  unfriendly.  By  re- 
peated moral  abrasion,  he  forced  Tory  and  Liberal  into 
realizing  the  moral  fraud  of  the  British  position  in 

295 


The  Story  of  the  Irish  Nation 

Ireland.  Before  he  was  thirty-five  the  heads  of  both 
parties  had  to  consider  doing  business  with  him.  Both 
Tories  and  Liberals  sought  an  alliance.  When,  in  the 
end,  Gladstone  made  Home  Rule  his  own,  Parnell  mod- 
erated his  parliamentary  tone.  But  out  of  his 
strategy,  before  he  died,  the  land  war  was  brought  to 
a  reasonable  armistice  and  the  Union  was  upset  forever. 

13 

In  politics,  as  in  other  forms  of  warfare,  the  general 
alone  cannot  win.  Parnell  profited  by  the  situation  in 
England,  in  America,  in  Ireland.  Gladstone  he  called 
the  "grand  old  spider"  and  he  knew  how  slippery  and 
sinuous,  how  plausible  and  casuistic,  was  that  eminent 
exponent  of  Liberalism.  Yet,  with  the  full  knowledge 
that  Gladstone  had  a  mind  with  as  many  entrances 
and  exits  as  a  summer  hotel,  that  he  never  uttered  a 
moral  sentiment  without  taking  up  a  political  collec- 
tion, the  fact  remained  for  Ireland  that  Gladstone  had 
moved  from  the  Tory  valuation  of  life  to  the  half- 
mystical,  half-deceived,  Liberal  valuation,  in  which  a 
policy  of  "trust"  enabled  him  to  propose  to  English- 
men a  program  of  power.  To  keep  such  a  program 
before  the  British  public,  with  its  Tory  German  queen, 
its  bilious  civil  service,  its  choleric  colonels,  its  slow 

296 


The  Land  War 

omnivorous  banking  class,  its  thumpingly  dull  squires, 
its  anemic  clerks,  its  imperialistic  Union  Jackals,  was 
in  itself  a  work  of  moral  genius.  And  while  Gladstone 
had  to  be  watched,  because  there  was  a  lie  in  the  com- 
promise of  Liberalism,  the  mere  fact  that  he  was  an 
Englishman  inculcating  morals  in  politics  was  an  ad- 
vantage to  Parnell. 

The  advantage  that  America  provided  was  quite  dif- 
ferent. The  Irish  in  the  United  States  did  not  want 
to  overwhelm  the  house  of  commons  with  argument. 
Most  of  them  wanted  to  blow  it  up  with  dynamite, 
Irish  members  and  all.  They  had  themselves  been 
wronged  and  injured.  They  desired  to  injure,  if  not 
to  wrong,  in  return.  A  great  many  Englishmen  were 
slain  by  word  of  mouth  in  New  York  and  Boston  and 
Chicago  saloons  in  the  decade  which  preceded  ParnelPs 
leadership.  But  young  Irishmen  like  John  Devoy  were 
contemptuous  of  this  brainless  talk  of  vengeance,  this 
"rat-hole  conspiracy."  Like  the  Americans  who  sought 
to  undermine  the  Austrian  army  during  the  World 
War,  John  Devoy  had  done  his  work  for  Ireland  among 
the  poverty-recruits  of  the  British  army,  and  he  had 
helped  to  make  England  uncertain  whether  Irishmen  in 
uniform  would  kill  Irishmen  not  in  uniform  as  promptly 
as  they  should.  The  prospect  that  spread  before  Ire- 

297 


The  Story  of  the  Irish  Nation 

land  in  1875  was  not,  however,  one  of  armed  resistance. 
The  fiasco  of  1866-67  ended  that  hope.  What  John 
Devoy  believed,  after  Parnell  had  developed  his  policy, 
was  that  he  could  lend  Parnell  just  that  kind  of  non- 


Michael     Davitt 


contractual  assistance  which  Parnell  was  later  to  lend 
to  Gladstone.  It  was  the  intelligent  coordination  of 
constitutional  and  illegal  agitation.  But  it  needed  no 
treaty,  no  document,  no  conspiracy.  All  it  needed 
was  confidence  on  the  part  of  the  supreme  council  for 

298 


The  Land  War 

Ireland  in  the  genuine  national  tendency  of  Parnell's 
parliamentary  activity.  (The  Fenians  called  them- 
selves the  National  party.)  Once  it  was  clear  that 
Parnell  was  at  least  dead  in  earnest  about  landlordism, 
John  Devoy  was  with  him  ;  and  while  the  supreme  coun- 
cil did  not  follow  Devoy,  the  local  Fenians  did. 


The  man  who  made  the  bridge  between  Parnell  and 
the  American  Fenians  was  born,  strangely  enough,  the 
same  year  as  Parnell  himself,  and,  like  Parnell,  he  was 
to  spend  most  of  his  youth  in  England.  But  while  Par- 
nell was  reared  in  a  country-house  and  lived  in  England 
with  tutors,  Michael  Davitt  came  into  the  world  in  a 
hut  in  Mayo,  and  when  eviction  swept  his  father  and 
mother  out  of  their  holding  they  "had  to  beg  through 
the  streets  of  England  for  bread."  They  settled,  at 
last,  in  Lancashire.  Michael  Davitt  went  to  work  as 
a  child  in  a  cotton-mill.  Before  he  was  twelve  his  right 
arm  was  mangled  and  had  to  be  amputated.  He  be- 
came a  messenger  in  the  local  post-office.  Later,  he 
found  himself  at  home  among  fellow-immigrants,  and, 
while  Parnell  was  still  a  student  at  Magdalene  College, 
he  was  carrying  a  rifle  in  the  attack  on  Chester 
Castle,  1867. 

299 


The  Story  of  the  Irish  Nation 

In  1870  he  was  tried  for  shipping  arms  to  Ireland, 
and  sentenced  to  fifteen  years'  penal  servitude.  After 
serving  seven  years  and  seven  months  he  was  released 
from  Dartmoor.  He  was  a  pre-Celt  of  the  Connacht 
type — tall,  dark,  swarthy,  with  a  marked  combination 
of  fire  and  gentleness.  He  and  his  fellow-Fenians — 
McCarthy,  Bryan,  and  Chambers — were  received  in 
Ireland  not  as  ticket-of-leave  convicts  but  as  political 
prisoners.  Parnell  asked  them  to  breakfast  the  morn- 
ing after  their  arrival  in  Dublin.  On  that  morning 
one  of  them — McCarthy — had  barely  reached  Par- 
nell's  room  at  Morrison's  Hotel  before  he  collapsed  and 
died.  The  fact  that  many  churches  refused  his  body 
shows  the  strong  clerical  feeling  against  Fenianism 
that  still  remained. 

Davitt  was  much  impressed  by  the  young  parlia- 
mentary leader.  Possibly,  he  says  in  "The  Fall  of 
Feudalism  in  Ireland,"  one  is  very  impressionable  on 
coming  back  to  the  world  after  years  in  prison.  "It 
is  like  coming  into  the  sunshine  and  among  the  flowers 
after  a  lifetime  in  the  depths  of  a  coal-pit.  Making 
due  allowance  for  this  exceptional  state  of  mind,  Mr. 
Parnell  appeared  to  me  to  be  much  superior  to  his 
recommendations.  He  struck  me  at  once  with  the 
power  and  directness  of  his  personality.  There  was 

300 


The  Land  War 

the  proud,  resolute  bearing  of  a  man  of  conscious 
strength,  with  a  mission,  wearing  no  affectation,  but 
without  a  hint  of  Celtic  character  or  a  trait  of  its 
racial  enthusiasm.  'An  Englishman  of  the  strongest 
type,  moulded  for  an  Irish  purpose,'  was  my  thought. 
jl?;i.<  He  expressed,  as  I  am  sure  he  felt,  a  genuine 
sympathy  for  those  who  had  undergone  the  ordeal  of 
penal  servitude,  with  its  nameless  indignities  and  priva- 
tions. 'I  would  not  face  it,'  I  recollect  him  saying. 
'It  would  drive  me  mad.  Solitude  and  silence  are  too 
horrible  to  think  of.  I  would  kill  a  warder  and  get 
hanged 

Still  a  Fenian,  Davitt  had  reflected  much  in  prison 
on  the  defects  of  secret  societies  based  on  quantity 
rather  than  quality.  He  had  made  up  his  mind  that 
Ireland  needed,  first  of  all,  an  organization  of  men  of 
separatist  principles,  whether  moral-force  men  or  not, 
and  then  immediate  issues  kept  alive  before  the  people 
— "A  war  against  landlordism  for  a  root  settlement  of 
the  land  question,  the  better  housing  of  laborers,  doing 
away  with  the  need  for  workhouses,  and  capturing  the 
municipalities  for  nationalism." 

This  policy  he  discussed  with  Parnell  on  a  railroad 
journey  to  Lancashire.  To  the  public  program  Par- 
nell assented.  As  to  becoming  a  Fenian,  he  answered, 

301 


The  Story  of  the  Irish  Nation 

"slowly  but  clearly:  'No,  I  will  never  join  any  political 
secret  society,  oathbound  or  otherwise.  It  would  hin- 
der and  not  assist  me  in  my  work  in  Ireland.* ' 

Perhaps  from  this,  perhaps  from  other  things, 
Davitt  concluded  that  "Mr.  Parnell  never  went  in 
thought  or  in  act  a  revolutionary  inch,  as  an  Irish 
nationalist,  further  than  Henry  Grattan." 

15 

It  was  in  1878  that  Davitt  reached  America.  He 
found  John  Devoy  entering  "loyally  into  the  most  dif- 
ficult task  of  inducing  men  who  had  hitherto  opposed 
all  moral-force  politics  to  give  support  to  the  new  line 
of  action."  Devoy  "brought  most  of  the  leading  mem- 
bers of  the  Clan-na-Gael  round  to  his  views,  and  the 
work  done  by  him  in  this  way,  and  in  line  with  a  corre- 
sponding labor  by  Patrick  Ford  of  the  'Irish  World* 
and  John  Boyle  O'Reilly  of  the  'Boston  Pilot'  .  .  . 
paved  the  way  for  the  success  of  Mr.  Parnell's  and  Mr. 
Dillon's  tour  a  year  subsequently,  and  to  the  starting 
of  the  auxiliary  Land  League  of  America  in  1880." 

It  was  on  this  visit  that  Davitt  became  a  friend  and 
disciple  of  Henry  George.  Later  he  tried  to  launch 
Ireland  into  the  enterprise  of  land  nationalization.  It 
was  an  idea  for  which  neither  British  nor  Irish  parlia- 

302 


The  Land  War 

mentarians  were  prepared;  and  Davitt  yielded  to  the 
counter-policy  of  peasant-proprietorship. 

By  organizing  America  for  Parnellism,  Davitt  gave 
an  immense  resource  in  money  and  sympathy  to  the 
land  war.  Now  he  returned  to  build  up  the  support 
of  Ireland. 

During  the  period  that  Davitt  was  in  prison  Par- 
nell  had  looked  over  the  house  of  commons  with  his 
engineering  eye.  He  had  no  romantic  notions  as  to 
this  stuffy,  muddle-headed  assemblage  of  political 
pawns.  And  he  had  no  towering  respect  for  English 
public  policy.  He  had  learned  from  his  fiery  mother 
the  patriotic  American  version  of  the  English.  "We 
have  no  objection  to  the  English  people;  we  object  to 
the  English  dominion.  We  would  not  have  it  in  Amer- 
ica. Why  should  they  have  it  in  Ireland?  Why  are 
the  English  so  jealous  of  any  outside  interference  in 
their  affairs,  and  why  are  they  always  trying  to  dip 
their  fingers  in  everybody's  pie?  The  English  are  hated 
in  America  for  their  grasping  policy ;  they  are  hated 
everywhere  for  their  arrogance,  greed,  cant,  and  hypoc- 
risy. No  country  must  have  national  rights  or  na- 
tional aspirations  but  England."  So  Parnell's  mother, 
who  was  Early  American. 

It  was,  perhaps,  in  the  memory  of  such  prejudices 
303 


The  Story  of  the  Irish  Nation 

that  Parnell,  with  Joseph  Biggar,  the  little  Belfast 
pork-butcher,  began  the  famous  game  of  obstruction 
in  the  house  of  commons.  This  game  was  a  retaliation 
on  the  pooh-poohing  of  Irish  questions.  While  Isaac 
Butt  squirmed  and  agonized,  the  strange  team  of  Par- 
nell and  Biggar  would  take  turns  at  wasting  fiours  of 
parliamentary  time.  But  their  sabotage  was  not 
merely  mechanical.  They  probed  the  British  soul. 
They  asked  awkward  questions  about  recent  attempts 
to  destroy  the  independence  of  the  Transvaal.  They 
forced  the  Government  into  an  enraged  defense  of 
flogging  in  the  army.  They  irritated,  goaded,  and 
outraged  those  comfortable  gentlemen  who  for  years 
had  yawned  at  Isaac  Butt. 

16 

Meanwhile,  among  the  small  tenants  especially  in 
the  West  of  Ireland,  the  blind  resentment  of  the  land 
system  was  becoming  acute.  The  days  of  the  sailing- 
vessel  were  over.  Steamships  were  already  bringing 
colonial  and  American  produce  into  the  British  market. 
This  promoted  the  clearance  policy,  by  which  large 
tracts  of  good  land  were  turned  into  grazing  ranches. 
The  occupiers  of  these  tracts  were  being  automatically 
forced  on  poor  land  at  rack-rents. 

304 


The  Land  War 

Davitt  was  much  closer  to  economic  realities  than 
Parnell.  He  saw  that  this  misery  could  only  be  ended 
if  Irishmen  grasped  an  economic  policy  and  learned 
to  organize.  He  went  back  to  the  people  in  the  West 
of  Ireland.  He  met  farmers,  talked  with  provision- 
dealers,  stood  with  the  men  at  work  in  the  bogs  or 
reclaiming  the  stony  fields.  He  saw  unmistakably  that 
a  storm  was  gathering.  There  would  be  a  famine 
again  in  1879 ;  that  was  likely.  Lord  Leitrim  and  his 
two  body-guards  had  been  killed  in  1878.  Leitrim  hap- 
pened to  be  a  brutal  man  who  took  his  tenants'  daugh- 
ters by  force,  but  his  assassination  was  a  sign  of  rising 
passion.  The  problem  for  Davitt  was  to  control  and 
direct  this  passion  for  an  economic  and  political  end. 

The  neighborhood  mind,  as  usual,  was  muddled  or 
incoherent.  But  in  disturbed  Mayo  he  found  a  case 
made  to  his  hand.  A  priest,  executor  for  his  brother, 
had  decided  to  evict  the  tenants  whose  rack-rents  were 
in  arrears.  The  local  press  was  silent:  it  would  not 
help  the  tenants  against  a  priest.  But  the  local 
Fenians  had  no  such  scruples.  They  were  Catholics, 
but  they  did  not  regard  Irish  politics  as  a  legitimate 
piece  of  church  property.  They  knew  that  the  priest, 
in  affairs  of  this  world,  was  often  quite  as  ruthless  and 
dangerous  as  the  British  Empire  itself,  and  that  over 

305 


The  Story  of  the  Irish  Nation 

and  over  again  he  had  lined  up  with  the  British  Empire 
to  fight  against  Ireland.  Many  Irishmen  did  not  for- 
get the  famous  edict  that  "hell  was  not  hot  enough  or 
eternity  long  enough"  for  Fenians ;  Father  Burke's 
landlordism  was  not  an  entirely  unwelcome  object-les- 
son to  the  seven  thousand  Mayo  men  who  attended  the 

meeting. 

17 

The  success  of  this  meeting  was  a  people's  success. 
It  immediately  brought  the  Catholic  church  into  action. 
Dr.  MacHale,  Archbishop  of  Tuam,  made  a  brave  at- 
tempt to  compel  orderly  agitation,  even  though  the 
people  might  endure  famine  in  1879  as  they  had  en- 
dured it  in  1846.  He  declared  in  an  open  letter  that 
"night  patrolling,  acts  and  words  of  menace,  with  arms 
in  hand,  the  profanation  of  what  is  most  sacred  in 
religion — all  the  result  of  lawless  and  occult  associa- 
tion," was  impious  and  disorderly,  and  must  be  stopped. 
He  did  not  explain  the  degree  of  educated  public  opin- 
ion and  organized  self-government  which  the  oppressed 
must  control  before  they  can  dispense  with  terrorism. 
He  simply  stated  that  "unhallowed  combinations  lead 
invariably  to  disaster,"  and  said  nothing  about  the  hal- 
lowed servility  which  had  equally  led  to  disaster  in 
1846.  He  condemned  a  meeting  at  Westport  which 

306 


The  Land  War 

Parnell  had  been  asked  to  attend.  But  to  Parnell,  so 
used  to  the  British  lion,  the  Lion  of  the  Fold  of  Judah 
was  not  so  terrifying.  "Will  I  attend?  Certainly. 
Why  not?  I  have  promised  to  be  there,  and  you  can 
count  upon  my  keeping  that  promise."  For  a  Protes- 
tant leader,  Davitt  felt,  it  was  the  most  courageously 
wise  act  of  his  political  career.  He  came  to  Westport. 
He  told  the  tenants:  "A  fair  rent  is  a  rent  the  tenant 
can  reasonably  pay  according  to  the  times,  but  in 
bad  times  a  tenant  cannot  be  expected  to  pay  as  much 
as  he  did  in  good  times  three  or  four  years  ago.  If 
such  rents  are  insisted  upon,  a  repetition  of  the  scenes 
of  1847  and  1848  will  be  witnessed.  Now,  what  must 
we  do  in  order  to  induce  the  landlords  to  see  the  posi- 
tion? You  must  show  them  that  you  intend  to  hold  a 
firm  grip  of  your  homesteads  and  lands.  You  must 
not  allow  yourselves  to  be  dispossessed  as  your  fathers 
were  dispossessed  in  1847." 

Parnell  understood  the  landlord's  position.  He  was 
a  landlord.  There  was  reasonableness  in  his  speech, 
and  clear  confidence,  but  that  phrase,  "hold  a  firm  grip 
of  your  homesteads,"  was  meat  and  drink  to  the  Irish 
tenant.  It  was  repeated  a  hundred  times  a  day,  like 
St.  Patrick's  prayers  in  the  sleet  and  the  rain.  It 
became  the  core  of  the  Land  League.  It  stood  between 

307 


The  Story  of  the  Irish  Nation 

Ireland  and  famine.  The  opportunism  of  the  church, 
not  unnatural  considering  the  back  door  which  was 
always  open  to  English  diplomats  at  the  Vatican,  had 
at  last  been  met  by  a  man  of  independent  mind.  Par- 
nell  was  not  like  the  O'Connell  of  1847,  an  inaudible 
old  man  tearfully  pleading  to  rows  of  relaxed  stomachs 
in  the  house  of  commons.  Parnell  pointed  at  the 
stomach  of  the  house  of  commons  a  steel  blade  to  whose 
language  that  organ  defers.  Five  thousand  tenants 
marched  into  Tuam  to  give  the  archbishop  a  sample  of 
their  earnestness.  And  to  the  Gaels  of  Mayo  came  a 
Norman-Irishman,  John  Dillon;  a  Dano-Irishman,  A. 
J.  Kettle;  a  Cambro-Irishman,  Matthew  Harris,  all 
giving  heart  to  the  feudal  slaves  of  Ireland. 

There  were  many  priests,  sons  of  the  soil,  to  see 
at  once  that  the  abject  submission  of  the  great  famine 
could  never  be  tolerated.  Within  a  few  years,  indeed, 
the  church  itself  was  using  these  whole-hearted  men  to 
capture  the  land  agitation. 

18 

The  Land  League,  formed  in  1879,  had  four  extrem- 
ists among  its  seven  officers — Davitt,  Biggar,  Brennan, 
and  Egan.  It  was  obvious  policy  for  Parnell  to  visit 
America,  which  he  reached  early  in  1880.  He  was  well 

308 


The  Land  War 

received  by  the  Irish,  addressed  Congress  in  a  speech 
that  reposed  sedately  on  the  wisdom  of  John  Stuart 
Mill,  found  himself  called  a  liar  by  the  New  York 
"Nation,"  and  was  asked  to  withdraw  his  banking 
account  by  the  discreet  Morgans.  His  attitude  was 
definite  regarding  landlordism.  "The  men  who  till  the 
soil,"  he  said,  "will  also  own  it."  But  he  linked  self- 
government  with  land  reform.  "When  we  have  under- 
mined English  misgovernment  we  have  paved  the  way 
for  Ireland  to  take  her  place  among  the  nations  of 
the  earth.  And  let  us  not  forget  that  that  is  the  ulti- 
mate goal  at  which  all  we  Irishmen  aim.  None  of  us, 
whether  we  be  in  America  or  in  Ireland,  or  wherever 
we  may  be,  will  be  satisfied  until  we  have  destroyed  the 
last  link  which  keeps  Ireland  bound  to  England." 

These  words  were  spoken  not  only  to  the  Clan-na- 
Gael,  but  to  America,  to  the  self-governing  colonies,  to 
Gladstone.  No  one  knew  their  significance  better  than 
the  Liberal  leader.  More  than  seventy  years  of  age, 
nearly  forty  years  older  than  Parnell,  he  saw  beyond 
obvious  disturbances  to  the  "New  Departure"  in  the 
Irish  struggle.  He  realized  that  with  the  land  war 
there  was  now  opening  a  war  on  the  British  Empire. 
He  realized  that  his  prime  antagonist  was  Parnell.  So 
far  as  the  land  went,  Gladstone  saw  that  the  Irish  ten- 

309 


The  Story  of  the  Irish  Nation 

ants  must  prove  irresistible.  He  was  prepared  to  sac- 
rifice the  landlords,  as  he  had  sacrificed  the  established 
church.  In  1881,  after  a  year  of  assassination  and 
coercion,  he  carried  fair  rent,  fixity  of  tenure,  and  free 
sale.  But  he  had  vision.  He  perceived  plainly  that 
the  Land  League  was  in  the  hands  of  men  bent  on 
something  besides  economic  revolution,  and  he  made 
up  his  mind  that  he  could  only  destroy  that  revolution 
by  competing  with  Parnell  for  Ireland.  On  his  side  in 
this  tremendous  duel  was,  above  everything,  his  vast 
moral  prestige.  He  could,  emancipated  as  he  was  from 
Tory  prejudices,  convince  the  world  that  Parnell  was 
a  lawless,  a  seditious  agitator  and  he  himself  the  broad, 
sane,  large-minded  friend  of  Ireland.  To  convey  this 
idea  to  sentimental  middle-class  Britain  would  be  sim- 
ple. He  had  racial  suspicion  on  tap  when  the  Irish 
were  too  active,  and  moral  fervor  on  tap  when  Britain 
was  too  slow.  But  the  real  fight,  as  he  saw  in  1881, 
was  to  cut  off  Parnell  from  his  base  of  supplies,  to 
sever  him  from  the  parliamentary  party  and  to  sever 
him  from  the  Irish  people.  By  "severe  and  strong 
denunciation"  of  Parnellism  he  hoped  to  arouse  the 
Catholic  Church  and  the  timid  Irish.  By  coming  for- 
ward with  local  government  he  hoped  to  draw  off  the 
Home  Rulers.  "All  we  can  do,"  he  said  in  1881,  re- 

310 


The  Land  War 

garding  the  Parnellites,  "is  to  turn  more  and  more  the 
masses  of  their  followers,  to  fine  them  down  by  good 
laws  and  good  government,"  and  sweeten  them  by 
"judicious  releases  from  prison." 

To  kill  Irish  separatism  by  alternate  coercion  and 
conciliation  was  the  Liberal  policy  of  Gladstone.  As 
a  foil  to  Gladstone's  sweetness  and  light  Parnell  could 
count  on  the  invaluable  stupidity  of  the  landlords. 
Gladstone  did  not  fear  an  armed  insurrection.  "The 
strength  of  this  country  is  tenfold  what  is  required 
for  such  a  purpose."  But,  as  he  confessed,  "a  social 
revolution  is  a  very  different  matter."  And  with  in- 
flamed class  feeling  to  help  him,  Parnell  could  always 
meet  coercion  with  the  cry  of  atrocity  and  conciliation 
with  the  cry  of  constancy  rewarded.  A  chief  secretary 
like  Forster  talked  loudly  of  Ireland  being  in  the  hands 
of  "village  ruffians'*  (a  "murder  gang").  Forster  sim- 
ply played  into  the  hands  of  the  Irish  with  his  frenzied 
pouncing  and  prodding  after  "a  certain  limited  number 
of  unreasonable  and  mischievous  men."  So  England 
made  agitation  easy.  The  land  war,  the  devotion  of 
the  Irish  people,  the  glamor  of  strength  and  silence, 
his  restraint  and  stately  dignity — these  weapons  of 
Parnell's,  Gladstone  could  not  parry.  He  could  only 
gather,  from  using  Mrs.  O'Shea  as  a  messenger  be- 

311 


The  Story  of  the  Irish  Nation 

tween  himself  and  Parnell,  that  the  Irish  hero  was,  after 
all,  an  Achilles.  Parnell's  difficulty  would  be  Eng- 
land's opportunity.  He  could  only  watch  and  wait. 

19 

Parnell  never  underestimated  this  master  with  whom 
he  had  to  deal.  A  Tory  democrat  himself,  he  could 
easily  measure  and  appreciate  Lord  Randolph 
Churchill.  A  skeptic  himself,  he  could  do  business  with 
the  callous  Joseph  Chamberlain.  But  in  Gladstone  he 
touched  a  creator  as  well  as  a  manipulator,  a  man  with 
a  suffusing  religion.  In  the  duel  between  the  British 
Empire  and  the  Irish  nation  it  was  no  simple  task  to 
meet  the  political  and  parliamentary  resourcefulness  of 
Gladstone.  Moreover  there  was  the  awkward  moral 
fact  that  Gladstone  was  increasingly  willing  to  en- 
counter and  did  encounter  "a  giant  mass  of  secular 
English  prejudice  against  Ireland."  The  queen,  as 
Gladstone  admitted,  had  an  attitude  of  "armed  neu- 
trality" toward  a  Liberal  minister.  In  the  country 
itself  an  "inveterate  sentiment  of  hostility,  flavored 
with  contempt,"  had  "from  time  immemorial  formed 
the  basis  of  English  tradition"  about  Ireland.  These 
were  Gladstone's  words.  Such  hostility  and  contempt, 
to  which  he  himself  was  superior,  was  political  senti- 


The  Land  War 

merit  of  real  importance.  It  penetrated  every  class. 
It  represented  a  strong  conviction  that  the  Irish  were 
inferior  and  alien — if  not  different  in  color,  certainly 
different  in  culture,  in  character,  in  faith,  in  ethics, 
and  neither  to  be  trusted  nor  respected.  It  amounted 
to,  virulent  race  prejudice.  In  rising  above  this  sacred 
egoism  (which  was  never  fully  shared  by  Wales  or 
Scotland),  Gladstone  was  a  pioneer  of  the  finest  public 
spirit.  Parnell  had  to  admit  it,  though  he  knew  only 
too  well  how  public  spirit  itself  could  be  used  to  under- 
mine the  national  position. 

The  fiercest  years  of  the  land  war  were  1879,  1880, 
and  1881.  In  those  years,  under  Parnell  and  Davitt, 
the  people  of  Ireland  became  thoroughly  aroused.  By 
arresting  Parnell,  Davitt,  Dillon,  Biggar,  Egan,  Bren- 
nan,  and  the  rest  of  the  Land  League  for  "seditious 
conspiracy,'*  the  Government  simply  intensified  the  bit- 
terness of  the  struggle.  Outrages  increased,  shootings 
and  burnings  and  murders.  With  each  act  of  coercion 
the  cabinet  yielded  on  the  Land  Bill  it  was  drafting. 
Finally,  after  twenty-two  spasms  of  concession  it  pro- 
duced the  act  which  gave  to  the  Irish  clansmen  the 
modus  vivendi  which  Henry  VIII  had  failed  to  give  to 
them.  It  was  the  execrated  Parnell-Davitt  organiza- 
tion that  won  this  victory:  "Without  the  Land 

313 


The  Story  of  the  Irish  Nation 

League,"  Gladstone  said  in   1893,  "the  Act  of  1881 
would  not  now  be  on  the  statute-book." 

By  establishing  a  land  commission  to  fix  rents,  the 
English  handed  the  agitators  a  new  weapon.  To  "cow 
the  tyrants"  became  an  Irish  formula,  and  the  land 
commission  found  itself  powerless  to  please  any  one. 
The  English  were  furious.  Gladstone  determined  to 
have  Parnell  arrested,  asserting  grandly  that  "the  re- 
sources of  civilization  are  not  yet  exhausted."  He 
did  have  Parnell  imprisoned,  locking  him  up  in  Kil- 
mainham,  but  by  doing  so,  by  vindicating  law,  order, 
the  rights  of  property,  and  the  freedom  of  the  land, 
Gladstone  once  more  inflamed  the  Irish,  leaving  them 
without  their  coolest  head.  A  no-rent  manifesto  was 
sent  from  Kilmainham  by  Parnell  and  his  associates. 
"Captain  Moonlight,"  as  the  bands  who  attacked  land- 
lords and  land-grabbers  named  themselves,  stepped  into 
Parnell's  place.  Twenty  murders  occurred  in  ten 
months :  a  landlord's  life  was  not  a  happy  one.  But 
the  no-rent  manifesto,  inspired  by  the  left  wing,  was 
condemned  by  the  priests  and  bishops,  and  a  wedge 
was  inserted  for  negotiations  which  ended  next  year  in 
the  Kilmainham  treaty  between  Parnell  and  the  Gov- 
ernment. The  Land  Leaguers  were  released:  an 
Arrears  Bill  was  guaranteed  to  take  care  of  the  handi- 

314 


The  Land  War 

capped  tenants,  and  Parnell  guaranteed  to  slow  down 
agitation. 

By  this  treaty  Gladstone  estranged  himself  from  his 
viceroy  Cowper  and  his  chief  secretary  "Buckshot" 
Forster  who  had  labored  to  apply  coercion:  they  re- 
signed. At  the  same  time  he  formed  a  vague,  promis- 
ing alliance  with  the  dreaded  Parnell,  and  Parnell  in 
turn  had  reason  to  think  that  through  Gladstone  and 
Chamberlain  he  could  work  for  a  genuine  national  set- 
tlement. 

20 

These  plans  soon  received  a  shock.  The  new  chief 
secretary,  young  Lord  Frederick  Cavendish,  was  Mrs. 
Gladstone's  nephew.  He  and  Mr.  Burke,  the  under- 
secretary, were  waylaid  in  Phrenix  Park,  Dublin,  on  the 
evening  of  May  6,  1882,  and  stabbed  to  death.  It  was 
the  first  time  that  any  prominent  official  had  been 
killed.  The  murder  of  Cavendish,  who  tried  to  beat 
off  the  assailants  with  an  umbrella,  gave  a  sensation 
of  horror  and  pity  to  the  world.  Who  were  the  mur- 
derers? Parnell,  Dillon,  and  Davitt  at  once  issued  a 
statement  to  the  Irish  people  saying  that  the  cowardly 
and  unprovoked  assassination  of  a  "friendly  stranger*' 
"stained  the  hospitable  name  of  Ireland."  Behind  the 
scenes  the  unimpassioned  Parnell  went  to  pieces.  He 

315 


The  Story  of  the  Irish  Nation 

wrote  to  Gladstone,  saying  that  if  Gladstone  thought 
that  his  leadership  prejudiced  the  Irish  cause,  he  would 
resign.  Gladstone  thought  his  conduct  "very  praise- 
worthy" and  counseled  him  to  remain.  But  the  con- 
ciliation policy  was  impossible  with  England  frantic; 
coercion,  and  outrage,  were  renewed. 

It  was  not  till  next  year  that  a  Dublin  alderman  of 
the  most  respectable  and  even  sanctimonious  character, 
Carey,  by  name,  turned  informer  on  the  small  unknown 
group  which  had  arranged  the  assassination  of  Burke. 
This  group  called  itself  the  Invincibles.  It  believed 
the  time  had  come  for  a  policy  of  terror,  and  had  pre- 
pared most  carefully  its  plot  against  Burke.  Through 
Carey's  information  five  of  the  Invincibles  were  con- 
victed and  executed,  and  nine  others  imprisoned.  Carey 
was  later  smuggled  on  board  a  steamer  for  Australia, 
but  a  man  named  O'Donnell  booked  on  the  same  steamer 
and  shot  Carey  off  Cape  Colony.  O'Donnell  was 

hanged. 

21 

The  Phoenix  Park  murders,  the  Maamtrasna  agra- 
rian murders,  and  several  attempted  political  assassina- 
tions— judges  and  policemen — gave  England  a  moral 
leg-up  which  was  badly  needed.  Parnell  looked  with 
disfavor  on  this  development.  He  valued,  as  Mr.  Ford 

316 


The  Land  War 

of  New  York  did  not  value,  the  chance  to  extract  a 
measure  of  self-government  out  of  the  house  of  com- 
mons ;  and  he  had  no  desire  to  hand  his  opponents  un- 
limited ammunition.  The  Clan-na-Gael,  however,  sus- 
pected Parnell  of  moderation  and  was  decidedly  restive. 
Davitt  was  impatient  to  bring  forward  land  national- 
ization, and  Dillon  wished  to  keep  up  the  fight  against 
landlords.  Parnell  was  under  this  severe  political 
strain.  The  strain  was  increased  by  his  personal  rela- 
tions. In  1881  he  had  met,  and  fallen  in  love  with,  an 
Englishwoman.  She  was  the  daughter  of  Sir  John  Page 
Wood,  a  clergyman,  and  the  wife  of  Captain  O'Shea. 
O'Shea  was  a  dashing  young  soldier  in  a  crack  regi- 
ment when  he  had  married  twenty-year-old  Katherine 
Wood.  By  the  time  she  was  thirty-four  (when  she 
met  Parnell)  they  were  living  in  friction  and  partial 
separation,  O'Shea  being  more  interested  in  his  racing 
stable  and  his  mining  adventures  in  Spain  than  in  any- 
thing else.  At  first,  he  had  quarreled  with  his  wife 
about  Parnell,  and  actually  challenged  Parnell  to  a 
duel.  Then  he  backed  down.  "From  the  date  of  this 
bitter  quarrel,"  Katherine  O'Shea  recorded  in  1914, 
"Parnell  and  I  were  one,  without  further  scruple,  with- 
out fear,  and  without  remorse."  O'Shea  and  Mrs. 
O'Shea  remained  on  friendly  terms  till  1886,  and  Par 

317 


The  Story  of  the  Irish  Nation 

nell  actually  forced  O'Shea  on  the  Irish  party  in  that 
year.  Mrs.  O'Shea's  biography  of  Parnell,  published 
in  1914,  revealed  the  tortuous  deception,  the  intense 
and  devoted  passion,  the  hateful  tragedy,  of  this  rela- 
tionship. She  and  Parnell  were  not  married  till  1891, 
four  months  before  Parnell  died.  Their  intimacy  was 
generally  known,  however,  for  years  before  the  O'Shea 
divorce  suit.  Mrs.  O'Shea  constantly  acted  as  the 
intermediary  between  Gladstone  and  Parnell.  When- 
ever Gladstone  needed  Parnell  in  an  emergency  he  sent 
for  him  to  Mrs.  O'Shea's  house. 

22 

The  stresses  of  Parnell's  life  and  of  his  party  were 
relieved  in  1883  from  an  unexpected  quarter.  With 
the  connivance  of  the  English  Government  and  at  the 
instance  of  a  person  called  Errington  the  pope  took  it 
on  himself  to  condemn  a  "tribute"  which  was  being 
collected  for  Parnell.  The  tribute  had  languished  at 
£7,700  until  the  pope  denounced  it.  It  thereupon  rose 
steadily  to  £37,000.  The  Parnellite  stock  was  high. 

It  was  so  high  that  both  parties  in  England  quickly 
conceived  of  a  home  rule  program.  On  every  side,  in 
every  well-organized  party,  there  is  a  wide  assortment 
of  ideals.  Lord  Carnarvon,  who  had  made  a  reputa- 

318 


The  Land  War 

tion  in  Canada,  came  forward  as  the  Tory  Irish  viceroy 
with  an  address  on  colonial  self-government.  In  a  few 
months  Irish  crime  was  no  longer  the  topic,  but  Irish 
needs,  Irish  rights.  In  an  empty  London  drawing- 
room,  vacant  for  the  summer,  Lord  Salisbury's  Irish 
viceroy  had  a  secret  interview  with  Parnell.  Even 
Lord  Salisbury,  feudal  to  the  limit,  talked  of  revising 
the  constitution. 

The  election  came  in  1885.  The  franchise  had  been 
enlarged  in  Ireland  by  400,000  votes.  It  was  guessed 
that  this  new  army  of  country  voters  might  reveal  a 
"deep  conservatism."  Instead  they  obliterated  Tory 
candidates  forever.  Parnell  was  now  ready  to  do 
business  with  the  Tories. 

The  Tory  vote,  however,  was  too  low  to  be  secure. 
Even  with  the  help  of  the  Irish,  it  could  barely  pull 
through.  And  the  alliance  of  the  Irish  was  too  dear 
at  the  price. 

In  this  predicament  of  the  Tories  Gladstone  made  an 
interesting  political  move.  He  knew  that,  imperially 
considered,  an  Irish  solution  was  most  desirable:  a 
moderate,  safe,  non-nationalistic  solution.  He  knew 
that  with  a  house  of  lords  anti-Irish  to  a  man  this 
solution  could  only  be  carried  with  and  by  the  Tories. 
He  guessed  that  under  these  circumstances  Parnell 

319 


The  Story  of  the  Irish  Nation 

would  take  virtually  anything  he  was  given.  So  he 
invited  Arthur  Balfour  to  tell  his  uncle,  Salisbury,  that 
the  Liberals  would  support  the  Tories  if  they'd  legis- 
late. But  the  party  game  is  the  party  game.  Salis- 
bury saw  nothing  for  the  Tories,  as.  such,  in  this  joint- 
stock  limited  liability  venture.  He  rejected  it,  turned 
from  conciliation  to  coercion,  and  soon  was  dislodged 
by  the  Irish  vote.  Then  Gladstone  took  the  Govern- 
ment with  the  Irish  on  his  side.  His  Home  Rule  Bill 
was  defeated,  however,  and  within  a  year  Salisbury, 
back  in  office,  was  announcing  that  the  native  Irish, 
like  the  Hottentots,  were  incapable  of  self-government. 
They  were  only  fit  to  use  knives  and  slugs,  he  said. 
He  recommended  twenty  years  of  "resolute"  govern- 
ment. And  he  suggested,  instead  of  sinking  money  in 
a  state  purchase  of  land,  the  deportation  of  a  million 
Irishmen. 

Gladstone's  defeated  home  rule  measure  cost  him  the 
support  of  Chamberlain,  John  Bright,  Hartington,  and 
many  others.  John  Bright's  defection  was  the  most 
serious.  It  exhibited  at  one  and  the  same  time  an 
impatience  with  Gladstone's  craftiness  and  an  impa- 
tience with  Gladstone's  tolerance  of  "rebels." 

The  rejection  of  this  bill,  and  of  a  Land  Bill  to  meet 
the  slump  in  agricultural  prices,  had  an  apparent  effect 

320 


The  Land  War 

in  relaxing  Parnell's  will.  He  was  "sick  unto  death" 
after  the  nervous  drain  of  ten  years'  warfare.  When 
the  landlords  became  aggressive,  under  Lord  Salisbury 
and  Arthur  Balfour,  he  was  not  anxious  to  renew  the 
fight.  A  perpetual  Coercion  Bill  was  part  of  the 
"resolute"  program.  This  did  not  arouse  him.  Bal- 
four's  prompt  assertion  that  "the  police  were  in  no  way 
to  blame"  when  they  wantonly  killed  three  onlookers  at 
the  Mitchelstown  meeting  drew  from  Gladstone,  not 
from  Parnell,  the  agitator's  cry :  "Remember  Mitchels- 
town !"  The  Plan  of  Campaign,  devised  by  Dillon  and 
O'Brien  to  countenance  the  tenants  in  reducing  their 
own  rents  and  paying  these  reduced  rents  into  a  politi- 
cal fund,  only  aroused  him  to  the  point  of  condemning 
it.  And,  in  accepting  £10,000  from  Cecil  Rhodes,  he 
spoke  of  the  Home  Rule  Bill  as  "a  final  and  satisfactory 
settlement  of  the  long-standing  dispute  between  Great 
Britain  and  Ireland." 

23 

So  constitutional  did  Parnell  seem  that  even  the 
Irish  Unionists  might  have  cultivated  him.  Instead, 
the  "London  Times,"  the  journalistic  holy  of  holies, 
enlivened  the  victorious  Conservatives  of  England  in 
1887  by  a  series  of  articles  called  "Parnellism  and 

321 


The  Story  of  the  Irish  Nation 

Crime."  One  feature  of  this  series  was  a  facsimile  let- 
ter of  Parnell's,  apparently  indicating  that  Parnell 
had  been  hypocritical  in  condemning  the  Phoenix  Park 
murderers.  Parnell  laconically  informed  the  house 
that  this  letter  was  a  forgery.  The  attorney-general, 
retained  by  the  "Times,"  went  out  of  his  way  in  a 
lawsuit  to  revive  suspicion.  Parnell  asked  the  Tory 
house  of  commons  to  appoint  a  committee  to  investi- 
gate. They  refused.  Instead,  they  appointed  a  judi- 
cial commission  to  sift  Parnellism  and  "crime"  without 
any  inquiry  into  agrarian  law,  economic  facts,  or  the 
social  circumstances  attending  the  land  war — in  Lord 
Morley's  words,  "one  of  the  ugliest  things  done  in  the 
name  and  under  the  forms  of  law  in  this  island  during 
the  century." 

The  "Times"  had  spent  £30,000  in  procuring 
through  the  secretary  of  the  Irish  landlord  alliance  the 
material  with  which  to  destroy  Parnell.  It  actually 
had  paid  £2530  for  eleven  precious  letters.  It  had 
made  no  investigation  or  test  of  the  authenticity  of 
the  famous  facsimile  letter.  On  the  word  of  Houston 
of  the  Irish  Loyal  and  Patriotic  Union  it  gave  its 
readers  the  corrobo ration  of  their  favorite  prejudices 
in  the  looking-glass  of  facsimile. 

But  what  the  "London  Times"  had  mirrored  in  its 
322 


The  Land  War 

campaign  of  malice  and  hatred  was  simply  the  poor 
invention  of  a  broken,  quailing  grafter  called  Pigott. 
On  the  witness-stand  Pigott's  forgery  was  pitilessly  ex- 
posed, mainly  by  his  misspelling,  "hesitency."  His 
guilt  was  complete:  it  led  back  from  this  expensive 
screed  to  years  of  "investigation"  in  which  he  had  lived 
well  after  many  lean  years  ;  required  only  to  produce 
political  skeletons  and  unwholesome  garbage  of  every 
description.  He  had  a  good  run  for  the  "Times" 
money,  but  so  agonizing  was  the  undressing  of  this  life 
of  shame,  and  so  awful  the  figure  beneath,  that  Pigott 
fled  to  Madrid  before  his  testimony  was  finished  and, 
traced  by  a  detective,  killed  himself  rather  than  return. 


The  boomerang  that  the  "Times"  had  hurled  at  Par- 
nell  recoiled  on  itself.  Its  circulation  collapsed.  The 
Tory  plot  to  annihilate  him  failed.  But  his  triumph 
was  not  to  last  long.  For  an  inducement  placed  at 
£20,000,  believed  to  have  been  supplied  by  a  practical 
politician  of  the  new  school,  Captain  O'Shea  named 
Parnell  in  a  divorce  suit  in  1889.  The  suit  was  pend- 
ing for  nearly  a  year.  A  defense  was  expected  but  it 
was  not  defended,  and  on  November  17,  1890,  the 
decree  was  granted  to  Captain  O'Shea. 

323 


The  Story  of  the  Irish  Nation 

This  verdict  was  calmly  received  by  the  Irish  party, 
by  the  National  League,  by  the  Nationalist  sympa- 
thizers, and  by  the  church.  From  the  envoys  visiting 
America — Dillon,  O'Brien,  T.  P.  O'Connor — came  en- 
thusiastic support  for  Parnell.  But  these  prompt  en- 
dorsements and  assertions  of  loyalty  were  not  unani- 
mous. England  of  the  upper  class  was  not  shocked  to 
hear  that  Parnell's  long  devotion  to  Mrs.  O'Shea  was 
at  last  disclosed.  Intelligent  people  did  not  confuse 
this  sincere  devotion  with  the  lechery,  the  drunkenness, 
the  homosexuality,  the  multiplied  scandal  and  shame, 
which  were  not  unknown  in  England.  Nelson's  name, 
moreover,  had  been  mentioned  in  England.  There  was 
a  statue  in  Trafalgar  Square.  But  it  was  not  the  real 
values,  the  honest  estimate,  of  this  divorce  suit  which 
mattered  in  the  least.  It  was  its  effect  on  votes.  What 
would  the  National  Liberal  Federation  meeting  say  at 
Sheffield?  Gladstone,  more  than  eighty,  had  his  ear 
to  the  ground,  solemnly  shaking  his  grave  politician's 
head.  Wait  and  watch,  he  wrote  Morley.  Look  out 
for  "our  Nonconformist  friends."  He  recalled  with 
some  humor  that  Nelson's  "Life"  had  been  circulated 
by  the  Society  for  Promoting  Christian  Knowledge, 
but  he  guessed  that  Parnell  would  n't  get  away  with  it. 
And,  if  he  did  n't,  if  the  scales  went  down  against  him, 

324 


The  Land  War 

Gladstone  knew  that  he  could  jump  in  on  the  heavy 
side,  pedestal  and  all. 

Parnell  had  never  concealed  his  hatred  of  English 
hypocrisy.  Now  he  was  doomed.  Morley  reported  to 
Gladstone  from  Sheffield,  "the  deep  instinct  for  moral 
order  is  awake."  W.  T.  Stead,  the  discoverer  of  White 
Slaves  and  the  voice  of  Puritanism,  condemned  Parnell 
as  immoral.  So  did  the  leading  Methodist,  Hugh  Price 
Hughes.  So  did  Michael  Davitt  in  the  "Labor  World." 
These  sincere  accents  swelled  audibly ;  and  with  them 
the  yelp  of  the  man-hunt,  the  keen  snarl  of  passion 
and  prejudice,  the  baying  of  the  wolves. 

Five  days  told  Gladstone  everything.  He  ap- 
proached the  Irish  party  with  his  suave,  benignant  air : 
"Notwithstanding  the  splendid  services  rendered  by 
Parnell  to  his  country,  his  continuance  at  the  present 
moment  in  the  leadership  would  be  productive  of  con- 
sequences disastrous  in  the  highest  degree  to  the  cause 
of  Ireland.  .  .  .  The  continuance  I  speak  of  would  not 
only  place  many  hearty  and  effective  friends  of  the 
Irish  cause  in  a  position  of  great  embarrassment,  but 
would  render  my  retention  of  the  leadership  of  the 
Liberal  party,  based  as  it  has  been  mainly  upon  the 
prosecution  of  the  Irish  cause,  almost  a  nullity." 

Almost  a  nullity !  The  Irish  members  suddenly  real- 
325 


The  Story  of  the  Irish  Nation 

ized  that  for  five  years  they  had  been  depending  more 
and  more  on  British  sympathy,  British  assistance, 
British  association.  They  had  learned  to  repose  on 
Gladstone  as  on  Abraham's  bosom.  And  now,  because 
of  the  invaluable  nonconformist  conscience,  Gladstone 
could  plead  to  them  his  immense,  his  pathetic  difficul- 
ties. The  cause  of  Ireland,  the  Irish  cause,  was  his 
life-work.  Would  they  not  dethrone  Parnell? 

That  was  Gladstone's  frontal  attack.  In  the  rear, 
of  course,  was  the  Catholic  Church.  "The  pope," 
murmured  Gladstone,  "has  now  clearly  got  a  command- 
ment under  which  to  pull  him  up."  In  1881  it  was 
Gladstone  who,  through  Cardinal  Newman,  had  for- 
warded the  police-notes  of  speeches  by  Irish  priests  to 
the  supreme  pontiff,  out  of  sheer  regard  for  Ireland, 
"in  this  hour  of  her  peril  and  her  hope."  The  scandal 
of  the  church  in  politics  still  appalled  him,  but  the 
supreme  pontiff  had  played  the  English  game  on  that 
occasion.  Now  the  cleric  in  politics  could  be  counted 

on  again. 

25 

What  would  Parnell  do,  placed  between  Gladstone's 
Irish  party  in  front,  and  Gladstone's  Catholic  Church 
in  the  rear?  Would  he  acknowledge  that  he  and  the 

326 


The  Land  War 

woman  he  loved  were  caught  in  sin,  and  would  he,  as 
Gladstone's  messenger,  Morley  requested,  withdraw 
from  leadership  "as  a  concession  due  to  feeling  in 
England"?  Parnell  declined.  He  said  that  "if  he 
once  let  go,  it  was  all  over."  "His  manner  throughout 
was  perfectly  cool  and  quiet,  and  his  unresonant  voice 
was  shaken.  He  was  paler  than  usual,  and  now  and 
then  a  wintry  smile  passed  over  his  face." 


That  was  the  end  of  Parnell.  In  Committee-Room 
15  his  party  chose  Gladstone  and  English  Liberalism. 
And  in  Ireland,  first  in  the  by-election  in  Kilkenny  and 
later  elsewhere,  the  priests  marshaled  the  country- 
people  to  the  voting-booths.  By  two  to  one  the  people 
voted  against  his  candidates. 

Dr.  Croke,  the  archbishop  of  Cashel,  put  the  case 
against  Parnell  in  a  few  words :  "All  sorry  for  Parnell, 
but  still,  in  God's  name,  let  him  retire  quietly  and  with 
good  grace  from  the  leadership.  If  he  does  so,  the 
Irish  party  will  be  kept  together,  the  honorable  alli- 
ance with  Gladstonian  Liberals  maintained,  success  at 
general  election  secured,  home  rule  certain.  If  he  does 
not  retire,  alliance  will  be  dissolved,  election  lost,  Irish 

327 


The  Story  of  the  Irish  Nation 

party  seriously  damaged  if  not  wholly  broken  up,  home 
rule  indefinitely  postponed,  coercion  perpetuated, 
evicted  tenants  hopelessly  crushed,  and  the  public  con- 
science outraged.  The  [Parnell's]  manifesto  flat  and 
otherwise  discreditable." 

The  truth  was  that  Gladstone's  published  terms, 
compelling  the  Irish  party  to  reverse  their  election  of 
Parnell  as  leader,  spelled  subjection  to  English  policy. 
The  center  of  Ireland's  political  gravity  had  shifted  to 
England.  This  suited  Gladstone.  And  so  long  as 
Parnell  was  beaten  in  Ireland  he  had  succeeded  in  his 
main  object:  reducing  the  Irish  problem  to  a  municipal 
problem.  He  never  wavered  in  his  desire  to  see  Par- 
nell beaten.  "I  would  rather  see  Ireland  disunited  than 
see  it  Parnellite.  .  .  .  We  are  now,  I  think,  freed  from 
the  enormous  danger  of  seeing  Parnell  master  in  Ire- 
land.'* He  called  the  Parnellite  voters  of  Kilkenny 
"rogues"  or  "fools." 

The  rogues  and  fools  fought  for  Parnell  in  every 
community,  and  Parnell  threw  himself  into  every  con- 
test with  despairing  energy.  After  his  first  attempt 
to  domineer,  though  cornered,  he  had  offered  to  resign, 
provided  Gladstone  would  give  certain  guarantees  to 
Ireland.  But  Gladstone  was  already  sure  of  the  party, 
sure  of  the  church.  He  offered  no  guarantees.  The 

328 


The  Land  War 

fight  was  carried  through  Kilkenny,  Sligo,  Carlow. 
The  spirit  of  each  election  was  savage. 

What  will  be  the  result  of  the  general  election,  he 
asked  his  biographer  Barry  O'Brien. 

"I  should  think  that  you  will  come  back  with  about 
five  followers,  and  I  should  not  be  surprised  if  you 
came  back  absolutely  alone." 

"Well,"  he  answered,  *'if  I  do  come  back  absolutely 
alone,  one  thing  is  certain,  I  shall  then  represent  a 
party  whose  independence  will  not  be  sapped." 

The  strain  of  the  fight,  the  conflict  and  confusion  of 
motives,  the  physical  exhaustion,  brought  him  to  the 
danger-point.  A  chill  at  Creggs  sent  him  back  to 
Brighton  with  acute  rheumatism.  On  October  6,  1891, 
he  failed  and  died,  at  the  age  of  forty-five. 

27 

So  long  as  Parnell  had  rallied  the  people,  the  con- 
stitutional movement  kept  its  national  spear-head. 
Without  Parnell  it  became  no  more  revolutionary  than 
a  broomstick.  A  great  deal  of  legislative  power  was 
still  controlled  by  the  Irish  members,  and  in  the  gen- 
eration following  Parnell  a  great  deal  of  admirable 
legislation  was  secured.  But  without  being  a  declared 
or  even  convinced  separatist,  Parnell  gave  the  Irish 

329 


The  Story  of  the  Irish  Nation 

Gael  what  he  needed — a  leader  who  had  not  one  drop 
of  slave-blood  in  him.  John  Dillon,  T.  M.  Healy,  T. 
P.  O'Connor,  William  O'Brien — these  men  had  been 
brought  to  heel  by  Gladstone  as  against  Parnell,  and 
even  if  they  were  as  free  as  the  wind,  their  action  seemed 
bloodless  and  timid.  It  was  not  ParnelPs  so-called 
aristocratic  bearing  which  won  the  Irish ;  it  was  his 
mettle.  His  nature  had  something  cold  and  hard  in 
it.  "I  am  a  man  and  I  have  told  these  children  what 
they  want."  So  he  said  in  1890.  This  arrogance 
hurt  him ;  but  in  the  English  parliament  he  had  changed 
the  hunted  to  the  hunter.  He  was  like  the  race  mem- 
ory of  a  hero,  half-God,  half-human — "tameless  and 
swift  and  proud."  He  held  the  Irish  heart  until  he 
was  seen  as  a  furtive  lover,  a  man  in  shame  and 
disguise. 

When  he  was  gone  the  champions  and  heroes  who 
hooked  laborers'  cottages  out  of  the  imperial  grab-bag 
did  not  enable  Ireland  to  dream  dreams.  The  break- 
ing of  Parnell  was  more  than  the  loss  of  a  parliamen- 
tary leader.  It  was  the  loss  of  a  national  idol.  The 
Irish  let  their  weapons  fall  when  their  leader  was  slain. 

To  become  leaders  in  themselves,  no  longer  enslaved 
to  a  personality,  was  the  task  of  the  rebuilders  of  the 
Irish  nation.  It  was  a  slow  process,  but  in  the  dreary 

330 


The  Land  War 

emptiness  of  politics  after  Parnell  the  Irish  imagina- 
tion sought  this  escape  from  England  and  Westminster. 
Meanwhile,  Gladstone  believed  that  Ireland  was  at  last 
frock-coated  and  in  its  right  mind. 


331 


CHAPTER  XI 

THE    COMING    OF    SINN    FEIN 
1 

ON  the  surface  of  events  the  downfall  of  Parnell 
looked    more    tragic,    more    ruinous,    than    any 
episode  of  two  centuries.     It  tore  the  nation  in  two :  it 
ended  a  great  militant's  career. 

Parnell  in  one  sense  was  the  best  general  Ireland  had 
ever  had.  When  he  entered  the  house  of  commons  he 
found  the  Irish  parliamentarians  like  sheep  without  a 
shepherd,  contemptuously  patronized  by  British  Tories 
and  mildly  tolerated  by  Liberals.  Parnell  contrived 
in  a  few  years  to  get  rid  of  those  Irish  members  who 
took  their  tone  not  from  Ireland  but  from  the  house 
of  commons,  feeling  they  were  members  of  a  gentle- 
manly club  in  which  their  chief  duty  was  to  conciliate 
their  Tory  neighbors.  He  recruited  earnest  men  who 
saw  themselves  as  the  representatives  of  a  nation  per- 
haps the  most  desolate  and  surely  the  most  outraged 
in  northern  Europe.  This  new  party,  organized  as 
shock  troops  under  a  strict  command,  stamped  the 

332 


The  Coming  of  Sinn  Fein 

Irish  cause  and  Parnell's  personality  into  British 
political  consciousness.  Anxious  apprehension  sup- 
planted the  old  tolerant,  patronizing  attitude.  Parnell 
aroused  class  superstition  and  race  prejudice,  he  was 
feared  and  hated,  but  he  forced  British  Liberalism  to 
make  the  Irish  cause  its  own,  and  he  drove  the  Tories 
into  competition  for  his  support.  Even  when  he  re- 
laxed his  agitation  and  followed  the  Liberals  in  their 
conduct  of  the  fight,  he  remained  the  most  formidable 
figure  in  British  politics. 

With  the  fall  of  Parnell  this  instantly  changed.  The 
constitutional  movement  passed  from  Ireland  to 
Britain,  from  nationalism  to  Liberalism,  from  in- 
sistence to  compromise,  from  life  to  death.  Gladstone 
did  not  relax.  In  1893  he  re-introduced  the  Home 
Rule  bill  and  fought  for  it  with  supreme  skill,  but  his 
greatest  efforts  could  not  procure  a  British  majority 
inside  the  commons.  The  Irish  vote  alone  brought  the 
bill  to  the  house  of  lords :  there  it  was  dismissed  with 
disdain. 

When  Gladstone  retired  in  1894  the  Irish  cause  lost 
its  position  even  in  the  Liberal  program.  The  gallantry 
of  English  sympathizers  like  Wilfrid  Scawen  Blunt  had 
done  little  to  alter  the  leaden  indifference  of  Britain. 
But  this  feebleness  of  Liberalism  was  the  negative  side 

333 


The  Story  of  the  Irish  Nation 

of  the  Parnell  tragedy.  The  positive  side  was  felt  in 
Ireland  itself,  where  counsel  was  divided  and  passion 
was  fierce  and  barren. 

At  no  period,  perhaps,  had  the  faults  and  pitiful 
weaknesses  of  human  character  been  more  revealed  than 
in  this  day  of  Parnellism:  the  politicians  running  here 
and  there  looking  for  the  best  bargain,  the  newspapers 
full  of  windy  preachments,  the  priests  and  the  bishops 
influencing  the  people  in  outrageous  partisanship,  the 
whole  country  a  seething  mass  of  prejudice,  anger, 
savage  insult,  personal  abuse,  and  terrorism,  with 
England  enjoying  the  spectacle  and  feeding  the  flame. 
Such  rancorous  words  were  spoken  in  this  period,  and 
so  little  charity  was  preserved  even  by  the  heroes  of 
the  occasion,  that  sane  public  life  seemed  an  impos- 
sibility for  the  future.  It  was,  without  bloodshed,  a 
period  of  civil  war. 

So,  to  all  appearances,  the  fall  of  Parnell  was  a 
dark  calamity.  It  cost  Ireland  its  leader,  it  created  a 
mania  of  controversy,  revealing  above  everything  else 
the  lack  of  trained  political  mind. 

2 

But  this  wildness  of  Parnellite  and  anti-Parnellite 
was  not  fatal  to  Ireland.  In  its  destructive  eruption 

334 


The  Coming  of  Sinn  Fein 

the  country  was  to  purge  itself  of  its  preoccupation 
with  parliament.  It  was  to  turn  away  from  West- 
minster and  to  regain  its  national  spirit. 

For  conflict  with  England  was,  in  the  end,  an  acci- 
dent and  interruption  of  Irish  life.  Since  1800  politics 
had  indeed  been  compulsive.  The  Penal  Laws  had 
stripped  the  native  Irish  of  property  and  power  in 
the  eighteenth  century.  The  rising  of  '98  had  been 
a  convulsion  due  to  the  return  of  native  vitality. 
Brought  handcuffed  into  the  Union,  the  Irish  people 
had  been  forced  to  seek  whatever  practical  social 
amelioration  was  possible.  The  people  were  without 
Catholic  representatives  even  in  the  imperial  parlia- 
ment. They  were,  as  observers  like  Sir  Walter  Scott 
had  testified,  the  most  miserable  of  serfs.  They  had 
no  capital,  no  economic  or  political  control,  no  strength 
even  to  throw  off  so  unjust  an  exaction  as  the  tithe. 
Poverty,  the  result  of  bad  land  tenure,  was  the  first 
fact  of  Irish  life.  It  swamped  Ireland  like  a  Holland 
with  the  dykes  open.  It  kept  the  land  in  a  sub-national 
condition.  Until  the  nineties  a  few  thousand  land- 
lords lived  luxuriously  but  most  of  them  really  lived 
meanly.  A  few  thousand  merchants  and  liquor-dealers 
had  good  bank-accounts  and  fat  investments  (outside 
the  country),  but  most  of  the  small  traders  and  hun- 

335 


The  Story  of  the  Irish  Nation 

dreds  of  the  publicans  were  submerged  in  dingy,  mel- 
ancholy, poverty-stricken  routine.  The  bishops  re- 
ceived many  large  contributions  from  generous  and 
pious  Catholics.  New  cathedrals  and  numerous 
churches,  one  or  two  of  them  beautiful,  replaced  the 
poor  chapels  which  had  served  Ireland  during  its 
harassed  centuries.  But  outside  Northeast  Ulster, 
which  was  independent  of  agriculture,  Ireland  was  a 
land  the  most  wretched  and  forlorn  in  northern  Europe. 
Two  million  of  the  people  were  practically  in  servitude 
still.  Two  things  were  needed  to  change  this  abnormal 
social  state — one,  to  get  rid  of  landlordism;  the  other, 
to  move  from  agrarian  to  agricultural  reform.  Only 
by  new  laws  could  land  tenure  be  corrected;  and  this 
necessity  drove  Ireland  to  Westminster. 


Driven  to  Westminster  in  the  fight  against  landlord- 
ism, the  native  Irish  naturally  kept  their  eyes  on 
Westminster  so  long  as  Parnell  was  battling  for  home 
rule.  But  home  rule  was  of  little  or  no  interest  to 
Ireland,  regarded  simply  as  a  measure  of  autonomy. 
It  was  not  discussed  in  Ireland  in  its  details  as  an 
intricate  piece  of  legislation.  It  was  of  interest  and 
concern  only  as  a  symbol  of  nationalism;  and  when 

336 


The  Coming  of  Sinn  Fein 

nationalism  turned  into  a  war  between  Parnellites  and 
anti-Parnellites  the  actual  terms  of  home  rule  troubled 
no  one  in  Ireland. 

The  real  Ireland,  in  fact,  could  never  be  understood 
merely  by  tracing  its  constitutional  relation  to  Eng- 
land. The  real  Ireland  could  not  be  measured,  as 
Australia's  well-being  or  Canada's  or  New  Zealand's 
might  be  measured,  by  a  happy  constitutional  adjust- 
ment. These  commonwealths  and  dominions  were,  after 
all,  offshoots  and  children  of  England.  Ireland  was 
not  an  offshoot  or  child  of  England,  any  more  than 
France  was.  Years  before  the  Angles  or  Saxons  had 
sprung  from  their  lairs,  Ireland  had  flourished  as  a 
civilization.  It  had  welcomed  St.  Patrick  a  thousand 
years  before  the  American  continent  was  discovered 
by  Europe.  It  had  a  memory,  a  personality,  a  sub- 
stance quite  distinct  from  the  memory  and  personality 
and  substance  of  John  Bull's  island.  It  was  never 
John  Bull's  Other  Island  except  by  military  conquest. 
In  no  mystical  sense,  but  in  the  true  sense  that  one 
child  differs  from  another  or  one  handclasp  from  an- 
other, Ireland  reserved  within  its  borders  a  something 
which  was  beyond  the  scope  or  competence  of  British 
governing.  It  was  the  sense  of  this  difference,  not  a 
desire  for  federation  with  the  empire,  which  gave  Ire- 

337 


The  Story  of  the  Irish  Nation 

land  its  interest  in  the  home  rule  question.  And  once 
Parnell  was  gone  as  a  national  leader  the  vitality  of 
Ireland  groped  for  a  new  national  expression. 

4 

That  nationalism  sought  to  revive  the  old  forms  of 
the  Gael.  An  Irishman  by  affiliation,  Dr.  Douglas 
Hyde,  saw  with  something  like  agony  the  threatened 
death  of  the  spoken  Gaelic  tongue.  This,  in  any  nor- 
mal country,  would  have  been  the  concern  of  legisla- 
tors, but  Dr.  Hyde  knew  that  the  Gaelic  inheritance 
meant  less  than  nothing  to  England.  England  had 
smashed  down  the  Gaelic  inheritance.  By  statute  and 
by  educational  policy  the  English  in  Ireland  and  the 
Anglo-Irish  had  done  their  best  to  kill  Gaelic  culture. 
Dr.  Hyde  saw  more  clearly  than  any  one  else  that  if 
the  lovers  of  Ireland  did  not  act  for  themselves  this 
barbarity  of  England  would  succeed.  He  did  not  go 
to  Westminster  for  help  in  this  struggle.  He  believed 
in  self-help.  He  knew  that  he  could  not  prevent  the 
emigration  of  the  Gaelic-speaking  Irish  or  of  the 
English-speaking  Irish  who  were  also  Gaelic-speaking. 
These  numbered  700,000.  But  he  knew  that  with  the 
live  coal  of  Gaelic  he  could  still  touch  the  lips  of 

338 


The  Coming  of  Sinn  Fein 

Ireland,  and  he  and  a  small  group  of  disinterested, 
non-political  enthusiasts  started  the  Gaelic  League. 

In  this  group  there  was  no  more  conventional  politics 
than  there  had  been  in  the  archeological  ardor  of  Sir 
William  Wilde  and  Dr.  George  Petrie,  in  the  editing 
of  texts  by  O'Donovan  and  O'Curry,  Standish  Hayes 
O'Grady  and  Whitley  Stokes.  The  Gaelic  revivalists 
were  primarily  scholars.  Eugene  O'Growney  of 
Maynooth,  a  priest ;  Dr.  Hyde,  the  son  of  a  Protestant 
clergyman;  and  John  MacNeill  of  Antrim,  founded 
the  Gaelic  League  in  1893.  From  this  beginning,  ap- 
parently so  academic,  a  powerful  popular  development 
was  to  come. 

It  did  not  come  easily.  The  native  speakers  were  in 
most  cases  the  elders.  In  ten  years  a  great  number 
of  them  died  out.  But  while  it  took  a  little  time  to 
reach  them,  it  took  much  more  time  to  reverse  the  dis- 
pirited or  contemptuous  attitude  of  the  younger 
generation,  to  make  them  see  the  proud  treasure  it  was 
to  have  the  Gaelic  and  to  bridge  the  morass  of  Anglo- 
Irish  history  back  to  the  Gaelic  past. 

The  labors  of  Dr.  Hyde  and  his  associates  in  the 
first  fifteen  years  of  the  Gaelic  League  are  in  them- 
selves a  thrilling  history.  The  men  and  women  of  the 

339 


The  Story  of  the  Irish  Nation 

Gaelic  League  won  a  decided  victory  in  the  end.  Ignor- 
ing England,  in  the  first  place,  they  taught  all  Ireland 
its  racial  distinctiveness.  They  lifted  the  country- 
people  out  of  the  mire  of  the  road  and  the  track  of  the 
plow  to  a  cultural  life  which  was  their  own.  And  with 
the  revival  of  Gaelic  came  annual  Gaelic  festivals  which 
included  singing,  music,  drama,  dancing,  story-telling. 
Dublin  at  last  became  a  center  for  the  interior  life  of 
native  Ireland. 

The  middle-class  Irish,  who  had  little  characteristic 
culture  outside  reading  library  books,  playing  the  violin 
on  wet  afternoons,  struggling  with  Italian  love-songs, 
and  painting  on  china,  were  at  first  inclined  to  laugh 
at  Gaelic,  but  at  last  they  shed  their  mad  craving  to 
perform  "Pinafore"  under  the  patronage  of  the  local 
bishop  and  they  broke  through  their  vulgar  affectations 
into  the  real  tradition  of  the  people.  The  Gaelic 
League  did  something  to  scour  away  the  dreary 
provincialism  of  the  Irish  towns.  It  revealed  a  beauty, 
a  sincerity,  a  dignity  in  the  disparaged  past  of  Ireland 
which  were  totally  omitted  from  the  stupid  school- 
books  of  the  government  system. 

A  somewhat  grudging  appreciation  of  the  Gaelic 
League  was  yielded  by  the  Irish  parliamentarians.  But 
the  young  men  and  women  who  saw  no  England  to  edify 

340 


The  Coming  of  Sinn  Fein 

them  except  the  contemporary  England  of  the  Boer 
War  were  deepened  in  national  feeling  by  Gaelicism. 
In  this  way  the  Gaelic  revival  was  inherently  political. 
But  for  many  years  and  against  high  pressure  Dr. 
Hyde  maintained  the  principle  of  neutrality.  The 
league  drew  strength  from  each  province  and  from 
every  kind  of  Irishman.  Gael  and  Gall,  until  1915, 
hung  their  shields  on  the  wall  side  by  side  and  greeted 
one  another  as  human  beings. 


Another  enterprise,  less  embracingly  national,  was 
the  dramatic  movement  which  began  with  the  Irish  Lit- 
erary Theater  in  1899.  Edward  Marty n  was  the  beget- 
ter of  this  theater,  and  with  him  were  George  Moore  and 
William  Butler  Yeats.  After  some  years  of  distin- 
guished work  on  the  lines  of  an  independent  "literary" 
theater  Yeats  led  the  experiment  to  the  "four  beautiful 
green  fields"  of  Eire.  With  his  own  creations  of  genius, 
most  of  them  drawn  from  Gaelic  sources  which  had 
been  opened  afresh  by  the  revival,  he  and  Lady  Gregory 
turned  the  National  Theater  into  the  medium  of  a 
genuinely  national  expression.  It  was  far  from  Yeats's 
idea,  however,  to  subordinate  the  pursuit  of  beauty  to 
the  utility  of  patriotism.  He  wished  instead  to  liberate 

341 


The  Story  of  the  Irish  Nation 

the  Irish  mind  from  its  fierce  preoccupation  with  means 
to  the  lovely  and  glorious  ends  of  the  national  being 
itself.  John  Millington  Synge  and  Padraic  Colum 
shared  this  passion  with  him,  Synge  in  flaming  idiom 
and  Colum  in  the  sober  hues  and  warm  notes  of  a 
quieter  countryside.  Lady  Gregory  and  William  Boyle 
were  to  follow,  dramatists  in  a  flight  of  creativeness 
such  as  Ireland  had  never  attempted  before.  Their 
subjects  were  in  nearly  all  cases  the  "democracy"  about 
whom  so  many  political  scientists  had  trembled  in  their 
armchairs.  The  actors  of  this  movement  (W.  G.  Fay 
being  the  genius  among  them)  were,  for  the  most  part, 
men  and  women  of  the  native  Irish.  Had  they  come 
into  Ireland  before  Yeats  and  Lady  Gregory  had  or- 
ganized this  rare  theater  they  would  have  died,  as  so 
many  Irish  died  before  them,  "with  their  music  in 
them." 

The  Gaelic  revival  and  the  dramatic  and  literary 
renaissance  (to  which  Ernest  A.  Boyd  is  the  most 
competent  guide)  had  a  great  deal  to  do  with  the  sub- 
sequent triumph  of  national  Ireland.  Padraic  Pearse, 
to  mention  only  one  of  their  later  leaders,  was  a 
disciple  of  Douglas  Hyde's.  In  1913  he  said,  "I  have 
served  under  him  since  I  was  a  boy.  I  am  willing  to 
serve  under  him  until  he  can  lead  and  I  can  serve  no 

342 


The  Coming  of  Sinn  Fein 

longer.  I  have  never  failed  him.  He  has  never  failed 
me.  I  am  only  one  of  the  many  who  could  write  thus." 
It  was  in  Connacht  that  Pearse  studied  Gaelic  among 
native  speakers  and  renewed  his  sense  of  the  Gaelic 
inheritance.  From  Connacht  he  took  the  name  of  his 
famous  school,  St.  Enda's — a  school  which  embodied 
ideals  of  Irish  culture  and  nationality  which  the  British 
occupation  of  Ireland  had  seemed  to  submerge. 

6 

In  this  period  of  non-political,  cultural  activity 
which  was  to  show  such  extraordinary  national  results 
twenty  years  later,  the  parliamentarians  by  no  means 
regarded  themselves  as  obsolete,  or  even  secondary  in 
national  importance.  The  amiable  Justin  McCarthy, 
the  ingenious  and  gifted  T.  P.  O'Connor,  the  grave, 
parochial  John  Dillon,  the  salient  T.  M.  Healy,  the 
dignified  John  Redmond,  the  romantic  William  O'Brien, 
the  radical  Michael  Davitt — these  striking  personalities 
attracted  a  far  greater  share  of  public  attention  than 
their  inhibited  programs  justified.  In  1895  the  Union- 
ists or  Tories  returned  to  power  in  Britain,  and  the 
natural  reaction  from  Gladstone's  compromise  with 
nationalism  was  Salisbury's  policy  of  "killing  home 
rule  with  kindness."  Land  legislation  was  not  aban- 

343 


The  Story  of  the  Irish  Nation 

doned,  and  the  Balfours  identified  themselves  with  the 
building  of  light  railways  and  the  establishment  of  the 
Congested  Districts  Board  to  relieve  the  worst  poverty 
and  hardship  in  the  west  of  Ireland. 


John  E.  Redmond 


Until  1897  the  "split"  between  Parnellites  and  anti- 
Parnellites  persisted,  with  John  Redmond  as  the  chival- 
rous advocate  of  Parnellism  and  John  Dillon  the  new 
chairman  of  the  Gladstonian  party.  In  1897  Redmond 
took  up  the  revelations  of  the  Childers  Commission  on 

344 


The  Coming  of  Sinn  Fein 

the  overtaxation  of  Ireland.  Instead  of  paying  one- 
twentieth  of  Britain's  expenditure,  the  gross  ratio, 
Ireland  had  been  compelled  to  pay  about  one-eleventh. 
(Ireland's  net  ratio  would,  however,  be  about  a  thirty- 
sixth.)  This  overtaxation  had  amounted,  at  the  low- 
est, to  about  £2,750,000  a  year,  and  had  been  going  on 
for  nearly  forty  years.  To  reform  this  abuse  seemed 
to  Redmond  an  adequate  program,  with  the  addition 
of  home  rule,  manhood  suffrage,  political  amnesty,  and 
land  reform.  The  Tories  were  not  unwilling  to  make 
concessions.  The  Local  Government  Bill,  which  came 
in  1898,  transferred  the  county  councils  to  farmers 
"without  experience"  from  a  select  committee  of  land- 
lords in  each  county.  These  new  popular  bodies  soon 
were  granted  by  Dublin  Castle  to  be  better  adminis- 
trators than  the  Tory  cliques  which  had  preceded  them. 
The  state  purchase  of  the  land  was  now  generally 
advocated.  The  Anglo-Irish  Bourbons  said:  "Peasant 
Proprietors  would  be  wasteful,  extravagant,  and  not 
industrious.  They  would  subdivide,  sublet,  and  en- 
cumber their  lands.  Whole  counties  would  fall  into 
the  hands  of  money-lenders.  The  payment  of  less  than 
a  'natural'  rent  would  complete  the  ruin  of  a  race  of 
slaves."  But  the  United  Irish  League,  formed  by 
William  O'Brien,  agitated  successfully  until,  in  1903, 

345 


The  Story  of  the  Irish  Nation 

the  Wyndham  Act  came  after  a  round-table  conference 
between  landlords  and  leaguers.  The  financing  of  this 
act  was  imperfect:  it  was  remedied  in  1909.  Two 
hundred  million  pounds  of  state  credit  was  required 
to  capitalize  the  voluntary  transfer  of  two-thirds  of 
the  land  to  peasant  proprietors.  The  Bourbons  were 
utterly  wrong  in  their  predictions.  The  program,  not 
yet  wholly  completed,  has  been  a  social  and  economic 
success.  The  landowners  as  a  class  have  lost  their 
position  of  privilege,  but  many  of  the  "old  stock," 
so-called,  have  frankly  given  up  Anglo-Ireland  as  their 
country  and  have  accepted  Ireland.  This  change  in 
national  ideal  completes  a  transformation  that  was 
promised  from  the  day  of  the  Geraldines. 

But  agriculture  in  Ireland  remained  seriously  back- 
ward. Not  long  before  he  died  Michael  Davitt  spoke 
witheringly  of  the  tenants :  "Nothing  short  of  absolute 
danger  or  necessity  will  rouse  them  out  of  their  dirty, 
slovenly  habits  of  living  from  hand  to  mouth,  a  shift- 
less, thriftless,  ignoble  existence.  When  I  return  home 
from  little  countries  like  Denmark,  Holland,  and  Bel- 
gium, it  makes  me  mad  to  look  on  at  the  criminal  misuse 
of  the  best  land  in  Europe,  which  you  see  in  our  mid- 
land counties  and  around  where  I  live.  Next  (in  my 
view)  to  the  long  experience  of  English  rule,  I  blame 

346 


The  Coming  of  Sinn  Fein 


our  whole  education  system  for  this  economic  ruin  of 
our  fertile  soil." 

It    was    with    critical    perceptions    like    these    that 
Horace  Plunkett  started  his  great  national  cooperative 


Ho  face    Plunkett 


movement  in  1897.  In  1895  he  had  taken  advantage  of 
the  fact  that  the  Unionists  (Tories)  were  favorably 
disposed  toward  constructive  legislation.  So  far  as 
killing  home  rule  with  kindness  went,  it  was  about  as 
intelligent  as  trying  to  kill  a  baby  with  milk.  Nation- 

347 


The  Story  of  the  Irish  Nation 

ality  throve  on  the  process.  But  Plunkett's  share  in 
the  procedure  was  that  of  a  practical  diplomat  who 
gathered  a  representative  allied  committee  to  frame 
the  Department  of  Agriculture  and  Technical  Instruc- 
tion. John  Redmond  so  far  gave  him  his  aid. 

Davitt's  idea  of  agricultural  education  was  subordi- 
nate in  Plunkett's  program  to  the  organizing  of  co- 
operative societies.  But  by  the  unselfish  and  arduous 
missionary  work  of  Plunkett,  Russell  (AE.),  and 
Anderson,  a  tremendous  economic  advance  was  made  in 
the  four  provinces,  particularly  in  the  milk  country 
of  Ulster  and  the  midlands.  And  men  came  together 
in  the  cooperative  movement,  as  in  the  Gaelic  League, 
who  had  never  before  imagined  the  possibility  of  ac- 
commodation and  good-will. 


To  wheedle  Ireland  out  of  its  national  feeling,  how- 
ever, was  a  policy  doomed  to  failure.  As  English 
critics  of  Gladstone  had  always  insisted,  this  was  the 
inherent  falsity  of  home  rule.  It  joined  in  common 
harness  two  types  of  men  whose  purposes  ran  in  con- 
trary directions — one  which  was  inspired  by  national 
feeling  and  wanted  to  strengthen  the  Irish  nation,  the 
other  which  was  inspired  by  a  desire  to  make  a  more 

348 


The  Coming  of  Sinn  Fein 

comfortable  place  for  Ireland  inside  the  British  sys- 
tem. 

In  converting  a  considerable  body  of  British  opinion 
to  home  rule,  Gladstone  had  not  preached  Ireland  a 
Nation.  For  a  moment  he  had  pondered  the  desir- 
ability of  establishing  Britain  and  Ireland  as  a  dual 
monarchy,  an  Austro-Hungarian  empire.  But  this 
idea  of  equal  partnership  he  had  rejected.  Britain, 
in  the  first  place,  had  become  immensely  rich.  It  had 
actually  twenty  times  the  resources  of  Ireland ;  it  held 
the  balance  of  power  in  Europe;  it  was  the  policeman 
(and  dictator)  of  the  seas.  As  against  its  great, 
muscular,  brawny  presence  Ireland  looked  pitifully 
weak  and  thin:  a  potato-fed  peasant  condemned  to  a 
"dunghill  civilization."  In  Morley's  life  of  Gladstone 
the  words  dreary,  sad,  sordid,  squalid,  are  associated 
with  virtually  every  mention  of  Ireland ;  and  the  sharp- 
ness of  Irish  wrangling  was  of  itself  enough  to  con- 
vince Britain  that  the  Irish  were  unfit  for  equal  part- 
nership. Hence  a  local,  subordinate,  home  rule  parlia- 
ment, decided  upon  by  British  statesmen  as  an  act  of 
the  British  parliament  and  extended  as  the  bounty  of 
the  great  British  Empire,  was  the  outcome  of  Glad- 
stone's Liberalism.  The  native  Irish  were  invited  to 
forget  their  history,  to  sink  their  desires.  They  were 

349 


The  Story  of  the  Irish  Nation 

warmly  promised,  and  after  thirty  years  granted,  "on 
the  statute  books,"  a  lower  constitutional  status  than 
Newfoundland. 

8 

Working  with  the  British  Liberals  on  a  home  rule 
program,  the  parliamentarians  completely  lost  their 
sense  of  Ireland  a  Nation.  They  favored  the  Boers 
during  the  Boer  War  on  the  principle  of  the  rights 
of  small  nations,  but  in  their  own  case  they  did  not  hold 
to  the  principle.  An  Irish  parliament  without  control 
of  taxation,  without  control  of  army  or  navy,  without 
control  of  the  militia  or  volunteers,  without  any  yes 
or  no  as  to  conscription,  without  any  voice  as  to  cus- 
toms or  excise,  without  a  word  as  to  free  political 
utterance,  without  immediate  control  of  police,  with 
an  anti-democratic  upper  house  and  with  a  fixed,  ex- 
cessive imperial  contribution  as  a  first  charge  on 
revenue — that  was  the  great  Liberal  Gladstone's  idea 
of  home  rule.  In  time,  too,  it  became  John  Redmond's. 
"To  talk  about  Ireland  separating  from  the  empire," 
he  said  in  1910,  "is  the  most  utter  nonsense.  .  .  .  We 
have  none  of  these  heroic  ambitions  and  harebrained 
ideas.  .  .  .  We  simply  ask  for  permission  quietly  to 
attend  to  our  own  business  in  our  own  way." 

350 


The  Coming  of  Sinn  Fein 

It  seems  hardly  possible  that  any  so-called  liberal 
empire  could  have  refused  a  once-free  people  this  meas- 
ure of  self-government.  But  the  fact  is  that  Britain 
refused  even  to  consider  this  degree  of  self-govern- 
ment for  Ireland.  In  1906  the  Liberals  under  Sir 
Henry  Campbell-Bannerman,  abetted  by  Sir  Edward 
Grey  and  H.  H.  Asquith,  proceeded  to  dole  out  an 
Irish  Council  Bill.  By  this  bill  the  Irish,  under  paid 
nominees  of  the  crown,  were  to  be  permitted  to  act  as 
committees  in  superintendence  of  certain  departments 
of  administration.  This  bill,  proposed  by  the  strongest 
Liberal  government  that  Britain  had  ever  elected,  was 
too  grotesquely  undemocratic  to  be  argued  before  an 
Irish  convention,  and  the  parliamentarians  found 
themselves  driven  to  force  the  Liberals  to  take  up  home 
rule.  The  accession  of  Asquith,  a  weakling,  did  not 
promise  well,  but  one  substantial  achievement  in  1908 
was  the  founding  of  a  national  university  which  at 
last,  in  the  twentieth  century,  gave  the  Irish  Catholics 
a  real  opportunity  of  higher  education.  The  worst 
effect  of  the  Penal  Laws  had  undoubtedly  been  Ire- 
land's deficiency  in  institutions  of  higher  learning. 
The  extension  of  education  in  1908  was  of  national 
importance:  for  one  thing,  it  gave  Pearse  and  Mac- 
Donagh  material  which  had  been  lacking  in  the  Rising 

351 


The  Story  of  the  Irish  Nation 

of  '98  and  in  the  work  of  the  Old  Fenians.  This,  with 
the  spread  of  secondary  education  through  the  In- 
termediate System  begun  in  1879,  had  much  to  do  with 
the  subsequent  strength  of  Sinn  Fein. 


While  John  Redmond  was  preparing  to  fight  for  a 
new  home  rule  bill  the  people  of  Ireland  were  not  ex- 
cited. John  Redmond  was  a  parliamentary  chairman, 
not  a  popular  leader,  and  he  took  Irish  support  almost 
completely  for  granted.  His  opportunity,  in  addition, 
was  a  somewhat  technical  one.  The  angry  house  of 
lords  had  pulled  the  "citadel  of  privilege"  about  their 
ears  by  daring  to  reject  Lloyd  George's  radical  budget. 
They  invited  the  Liberal  day  of  reckoning  which  they 
could  not  escape.  In  1910  Asquith  tried  to  tem- 
porize: he  did  not  enjoy  overriding  the  lords  at  the 
instance  of  the  Irish.  But  the  second  election  of  1910 
confirmed  Redmond  in  his  balance  of  power  and  gave 
him  a  right  to  force  the  issue  against  the  chamber 
which  had  repeatedly  blocked  self-government  for  Ire- 
land. The  parliament  act  gave  the  house  of  commons 
the  power  to  override  the  house  of  lords  and  to  carry 
home  rule  into  law. 

But  home  rule  was  not  to  pass  unopposed.  On  the 
352 


The  Coming  of  Sinn  Fein 

Unionist  side  it  was  to  meet  the  intense  hostility  of 
the  Tory  Old  Guard  in  England.  It  had  also  to  stand 
the  assault  of  Belfast  and  Northeast  Ulster.  On  the 
national  side  it  was  to  be  sharply  attacked  by  the 
skirmishers  of  Sinn  Fein. 

10 

The  opposition  of  the  Old  Guard  in  England  has 
been  vividly  recorded  by  H.  G.  Wells  in  his  novel,  "Joan 
and  Peter."  After  some  impatient,  contemptuous,  hec- 
toring pages  on  the  subject  of  nationalism,  Larkinism, 
Sinn  Feinism  and  everything  else,  Mr.  Wells  turns  to 
the  Old  Guard  and  declares  that  to  Ulster  "they  owed 
their  grip  upon  British  Politics,  upon  army,  navy,  and 
education;  they  traded — nay!  they  existed — upon  the 
open  Irish  sore.  .  .  .  The  arming  of  Ulster  to  resist 
the  decision  of  parliament  was  incited  from  Great 
Britain,  it  was  supported  enthusiastically  by  the  whole 
of  the  Unionist  party  in  Great  Britain,  its  headquar- 
ters were  in  the  west  end  of  London,  and  the  refusal  of 
General  Gough  to  carry  out  the  precautionary  occupa- 
tion of  Ulster  was  hailed  with  wild  joy  in  every  Tory 
home.  It  was  not  a  genuine  popular  movement,  it  was 
an  artificial  movement  for  which  the  landowning  church 
people  of  Ireland  and  England  were  chiefly  responsible. 

353 


The  Story  of  the  Irish  Nation 

It  was  assisted  by  tremendous  exertions  on  the  part  of 
the  London  yellow  press.  When  Sir  Edward  Carson 
went  about  Ulster  in  that  warm  June  of  1914,  review- 
ing armed  men,  promising  'more  Mausers,'  and  pouring 
out  inflammatory  speeches,  he  was  manifestly  prepar- 
ing bloodshed.  The  old  Tory  system  had  reached  a 
point  where  it  had  to  kill  men  or  go." 

In  spite  of  this  cold  Tory  plot,  the  opposition  of 
Belfast  to  home  rule  was  in  great  part  genuine.  During 
the  nineteenth  century  Belfast  had  built  up  consid- 
erable industry  in  linen,  cotton,  shipbuilding,  whisky 
and  tobacco.  Though  situated  on  Irish  soil  and  draw- 
ing on  a  population  still  to  some  extent  Gaelic,  it  had 
become  a  modern  capitalist  city  of  the  second  or  third 
rank  and  it  had  combined  with  its  grim  industrialism 
an  intense  conviction  that  the  Ulster  Protestant  is 
superior  in  race  and  creed  to  the  Southern  Catholic, 
and  that  home  rule  would  mean  Rome  rule  on  the 
model  of  the  Inquisition.  This  narrow  faith  was  held 
not  only  by  the  Presbyterian  workman  and  his  woman- 
folk  but  by  the  employing  class,  their  clergymen,  their 
teachers  and  their  newspapers.  The  exclusion  of 
Catholics  from  public  office  in  Belfast  turned  occasion- 
ally with  amazing  swiftness  to  the  combing  of  Catholics 
from  shop  and  factory.  The  Catholics  entrenched 

354 


The  Coming  of  Sinn  Fein 

in  Ulster  did  their  best  to  retaliate  for  these  upheavals, 
and  the  Ancient  Order  of  Hibernians  was  a  Catholic 
counterpart  of  the  bigoted  Orange  organization. 

As  the  most  intolerant  city  in  the  world  Belfast 
presented  an  acute  political  problem  to  the  Catholic 
nationalist.  The  Catholic  nationalist  had  devised  no 
real  treatment  for  his  inflammation. 

"The  great  barrier  to  Irish  success,"  Professor  R. 
M.  Henry  quotes  an  old  Fenian  as  saying,  "is  the  fear 
of  the  Protestants — unfounded  and  unreasonable,  but 
undeniably  there — that  their  interests  would  be  in  dan- 
ger in  a  free  Ireland.  Remove  that  fear  and  the  Irish 
question  is  solved."  To  this  end  many  Irishmen, 
Fenians  and  non-Fenians,  argued.  But  neither  the 
Liberals  nor  the  Nationalists  could  think  of  anything 
better  to  do  in  regard  to  Northeast  Ulster  than  to 
say,  like  Mr.  Wells's  Peter,  "nonsense"  or  "Fixed 
Ideas"  or  "foolery"  or  "it's  a  nuisance." 

11 

The  nationalists  to  the  left  of  John  Redmond  were 
definitely  willing  to  give  home  rule  a  chance.  There 
were  a  few  Fenians  still  in  Ireland,  but  the  tone  of  most 
Fenians  was  that  of  John  Devoy  in  1911 :  "I  would  not 
incite  the  unorganized,  undisciplined  and  unarmed  peo- 

355 


The  Story  of  the  Irish  Nation 

pie  of  Ireland  to  a  hopeless  military  struggle  with  Eng- 
land." Padraic  Pearse  had  a  similar  attitude.  In 
1912,  in  fact,  at  the  opening  of  the  home  rule  campaign 
he  spoke  at  the  same  great  O'Connell  Street  meeting  as 
John  Redmond:  "We  have  no  wish  to  destroy  the 
British,  we  only  want  our  freedom.  We  differ  among 
ourselves  on  small  points,  but  we  agree  that  we  want 
freedom,  in  some  shape  or  other.  There  are  two  sec- 
tions of  us — one  that  would  be  content  to  remain  under 
the  British  government  in  our  own  land,  another  that 
never  paid  and  never  will  pay  homage  to  the  King  of 
England.  I  am  of  the  latter,  and  every  one  knows  it. 
But  I  should  think  myself  a  traitor  to  my  country 
if  I  did  not  answer  the  summons  to  this  gathering,  for 
it  is  clear  to  me  that  the  Bill  which  we  support  today 
will  be  for  the  good  of  Ireland  and  that  we  shall  be 
stronger  with  it  than  without  it.  I  am  not  accepting 
the  Bill  in  advance.  We  may  have  to  refuse  it.  We 
are  here  only  to  say  that  the  voice  of  Ireland  must 
be  listened  to  henceforward.  Let  us  unite  and  win  a 
good  Act  from  the  British ;  I  think  it  can  be  done. 
But  if  we  are  tricked  this  time,  there  is  a  party  in 
Ireland,  and  I  am  one  of  them,  that  will  advise  the 
Gael  to  have  no  counsel  or  dealings  with  the  Gall  [the 
foreigner]  for  ever  again,  but  to  answer  them  hence- 

356 


The  Coming  of  Sinn  Fein 

forward  with  the  strong  hand  and  the  sword's  edg«. 
Let  the  Gall  understand  that  if  we  are  cheated  once 
more  there  will  be  red  war  in  Ireland.'* 

Arthur  Griffith  in  his  weekly  paper  Sinn  Fern  showed 
a  similar  tolerance,  and  in  1912  the  executive  of  the 
Sinn  Fein  organization  expressed  the  earnest  hope  that 
the  home  rule  bill  would  be  a  genuine  measure  of  reform. 
But  Sinn  Fein  warned  the  Parliamentarians:  "They 
have  had  the  government  'in  the  hollow  of  their  hands' 
for  years — they  have  removed  the  house  of  lords  from 
their  path — there  is  nothing  to  prevent  the  Liberal 
government  introducing  and  passing  a  full  measure  of 
home  rule  save  and  except  its  enmity  to  Ireland. 
With  a  majority  of  over  100  and  the  lords'  veto  re- 
moved the  fullest  measure  of  home  rule  can  be  passed 
in  two  years.  It  is  the  business  of  the  parliamentary 
party  to  have  it  passed  or  to  leave  the  stage  to  those 
who  are  in  earnest." 

When  the  terms  of  the  bill  were  made  known  Arthur 
Griffith  spoke  these  candid  and  practical  words: 

"The  definition  of  the  third  Home  Rule  Bill  as  a 
charter  of  Irish  liberty  is  subject  to  the  following 
corrections:  The  authority  of  the  proposed  parlia- 
ment does  not  extend  to  the  armed  men  or  to  the  tax- 
gatherer.  It  is  checked  by  the  tidal  waters  and 

357 


The  Story  of  the  Irish  Nation 

bounded  by  the  British  treasury.  It  cannot  alter  the 
settled  purposes  of  the  cabinet  in  London.  It  may 
make  laws,  but  it  cannot  command  power  to  enforce 
them.  It  may  fill  its  purse,  but  it  cannot  have  its  purse 
in  its  keeping.  If  this  be  liberty,  the  lexicographers 
have  deceived  us.  .  .  .  The  measure  is  no  arrangement 
between  nations.  It  recognizes  no  Irish  nation.  It 
might  equally  apply  to  the  latest  British  settlement  in  a 
South  Sea  island.  It  satisfies  no  claim  of  the  Irish  na- 
tion whose  roots  are  in  Tara,  or  the  Irish  nationalism 
which  Molyneux  first  made  articulate." 

12 

From  these  words  of  Pearse  and  Griffith,  and  from 
the  utterances  of  contemporary  Irish  labor  papers,  it 
is  evident  that  new  forces  had  been  taking  shape  in 
Ireland  under  the  surface  of  conventional  politics. 

Arthur  Griffith  was  the  son  of  a  Dublin  typographer. 
He  had  founded  his  weekly  the  United  Irishman  in 
1899  and  changed  its  name  to  Sinn  Fein  in  1906.  In 
1904  he  had  printed  a  series  of  articles  entitled  the 
"Resurrection  of  Hungary"  and  in  November,  1905,  he 
outlined  his  Sinn  Fein  program  at  the  first  annual  con- 
vention of  the  Sinn  Fein  national  council,  Edward 
Martyn  presiding.  His  was  a  non-parliamentarian 

358 


The  Coming  of  Sinn  Fein 


program  based  on  the  experience  of  Hungary.  It 
followed  the  German  economist  List  in  its  nationalistic 
economics  and  it  advocated  self-help  on  Hungarian 
lines  in  the  belief  that  it  would  lead  to  the  ultimate 


Afthur  Griffith 


freedom  of  Ireland:  "I  say  ultimate,  because  no  man 
can  offer  Ireland  a  speedy  and  comfortable  road  to 
freedom,  and  before  the  goal  is  attained  many  may 
have  fallen  and  all  will  have  suffered.  Hungary,  Fin- 
land, Poland,  all  have  trodden  or  tread  the  road  we 

359 


The  Story  of  the  Irish  Nation 

seek  to  bring  Ireland  along,  but  none  repine  for  the 
travail  they  have  undergone.  We  go  to  build  up  the 
nation  from  within,  and  we  deny  the  right  of  any  but 
our  own  countrymen  to  shape  its  course.  That  course 
is  not  England's,  and  we  shall  not  justify  our  course 
to  England.  The  craven  policy  that  has  rotted  our 
nation  has  been  the  policy  of 'justify  ing*  our  existence 
in  our  enemy's  eyes.  Our  misfortunes  are  manifold, 
but  we  are  still  men  and  women  of  a  common  family, 
and  we  owe  no  nation  an  apology  for  living  in  accord- 
ance with  the  laws  of  our  being.  In  the  British 
Liberal  as  in  the  British  Tory  we  see  our  enemy,  and 
in  those  who  talk  of  ending  British  misgovernment  we 
see  the  helots.  It  is  not  British  misgovernment,  but 
British  government  in  Ireland  good  or*  bad  we  stand 
opposed  to,  and  in  that  holy  opposition  we  seek  to  band 
all  our  fellow-countrymen.  For  the  Orangeman  of  the 
North,  ceasing  to  be  the  blind  instrument  of  his  own 
as  well  as  his  fellow-countryman's  destruction,  we  have 
the  greeting  of  brotherhood  as  for  the  Nationalist  of 
the  South,  long  taught  to  measure  himself  by  English 
standards  and  save  the  face  of  tyranny  by  sending 
Irishmen  to  sit  impotently  in  a  foreign  legislature 
while  it  forges  the  instruments  of  his  oppression." 

360 


The  Coming  of  Sinn  Fein 

Ireland's  freedom  was  no  less  the  dream  of  James 
Connolly,  who  in  1896  had  led  a  forlorn  hope  in  found- 
ing the  Irish  Socialist  Republican  Party. 


James     Connolly 


James  Connolly  was  born  in  Monaghan  in  1870  and 
at  the  age  of  ten  was  working  for  his  living  in  Edin- 
burgh, where  his  father  was  a  municipal  garbage-man. 
After  a  peculiarly  hard  youth,  in  which  he  combined 
a  variety  of  occupations  with  continual  study,  Con- 

361 


The  Story  of  the  Irish  Nation 

nolly  came  to  Dublin  in  1896.  Already  he  had  formu- 
lated his  belief  that  the  Irish  question  was  at  bottom 
economic  and  that  "the  Irish  socialist  was  in  reality 
the  best  Irish  patriot."  In  1898  he  started  the  Work- 
ers' Republic,  in  which  he  printed  his  "Labor  in  Irish 
History.'*  In  1903  he  emigrated  to  the  United  States, 
where  he  remained  till  1910.  When  he  returned  to  Ire- 
land, after  constant  socialist  activity  in  the  United 
States,  he  was  not  less  nationalistic  than  before.  The 
Irish  Transport  and  General  Workers'  Union  was  then 
new,  and  Jim  Larkin  was  a  rising  star,  with  Fred 
Ryan  and  Francis  Sheehy-Skeffington  among  the  intel- 
lectuals of  Irish  socialism.  At  first  Connolly  had  no 
great  popular  following  but  within  a  few  years  he  and 
Larkin  had  paved  the  way  for  the  immense  development 
of  organized  labor  in  Ireland  and  in  addition  had 
given  nationalism  a  militancy  which  was  to  be  demon- 
strated in  1916.  To  Connolly  the  home  rule  bill  was 
play-acting.  He  was  no  more  a  home  rule  Republican 
than  he  was  a  Fabian  Socialist.  But  it  was  far  below 
the  surface  that  men  like  Padraic  Pearse,  Sheehy- 
Skeffington,  Connolly  and  Larkin  were  affecting  opin- 
ion. Politicians  who  believed  they  knew  Ireland,  like 
John  Redmond,  dismissed  these  figures  as  "isolated 
cranks." 

362 


The  Coming  of  Sinn  Fein 

13 

The  obvious  and  striking  situation  was  provided 
by  Sir  Edward  Carson  in  Northeast  Ulster  and  by  the 
Unionists  in  England. 

It  had  long  been  clear  to  the  beneficiaries  of  Prot- 
estant ascendancy  in  Ireland  that  if  the  home  rule 
bill  should  ever  become  law  there  would  have  to  be  a 
transvaluation  of  Irish  values.  Undesirable  as  this  ap- 
peared to  a  limited  class  inside  Ireland,  it  served  the 
purposes  of  the  Unionists  in  England  as  no  other 
issue  could  have  done.  It  gave  the  Unionists  a  chance 
to  appeal  to  religious  prejudice,  to  tribal  loyalty,  to 
race  hatred  and  the  cult  of  the  superior  people.  Kip- 
ling wrote  a  poem,  as  might  be  expected,  and  all  the 
old  animosities  were  deliberately  and  enthusiastically 
aroused.  As  early  as  1911  the  Unionists  of  Northeast 
Ulster  declared  that  they  would  never  submit  to  home 
rule ;  and  Bonar  Law  in  England,  the  son  of  a  Canadian 
Orangeman,  promptly  asserted  that  armed  resistance 
to  home  rule  would  be  justifiable.  "I  can  imagine  no 
length  of  resistance,"  he  said  in  1912,  "to  which  Ulster 
will  go  in  which  I  shall  not  be  ready  to  support  them." 
With  Bonar  Law  and  Carson  stood  Lord  Londonderry, 
Lord  Charles  Beresford,  Lord  Hugh  Cecil,  the  Duke 

363 


The  Story  of  the  Irish  Nation 

of  Abercorn,  Lord  Roberts,  Lord  Willoughby  de 
Broke,  F.  E.  Smith  and  the  whole  Unionist  party.  By 
September,  1912,  over  250,000  Ulstermen  of  fighting 
age  were  asserted  to  have  signed  a  solemn  league  and 
covenant  to  "stand  by  one  another  in  using  all  means 
which  may  be  found  necessary  to  defeat  the  present 
conspiracy  to  set  up  a  home  rule  parliament.'*  "In 
the  event  of  such  a  parliament  being  forced  upon  us," 
the  oath  concluded,  "we  further  solemnly  "pledge  our- 
selves to  refuse  to  recognize  its  authority.'* 

The  organizing  of  the  Ulster  rebellion  was  no  secret. 
It  was  fully  advertized  to  the  British  cabinet,  the  Irish 
government,  the  secret  service  and  the  police.  From 
1911  onward,  rifles  and  machine  guns  were  freely  im- 
ported and  the  Ulster  forces  openly  drilled,  chiefly 
by  reserve  officers  of  the  British  army.  In  April  1914, 
when  war  with  Germany  was  almost  in  sight,  Sir  Ed- 
ward Carson's  followers  imported  35,000  rifles  and 
2,500,000  rounds  of  ammunition  from  Hamburg,  which 
the  Germans  were  pleased  to  supply.  A  few  weeks  pre- 
viously Sir  Edward  had  been  presented  with  a  silver 
sword  at  the  Ritz  hotel  in  London ;  Lord  Londonderry, 
Lord  Salisbury,  the  Duke  of  Marlborough,  Sir  Bryan 
Mahon,  Lord  Milner  and  various  other  Tories  giving 
it  to  him  "in  sure  hope  that  God  will  defend  the  right." 

364 


The  Coming  of  Sinn  Fein 

A  week  later  a  number  of  officers  at  the  Curragh,  in 
Kildare,  resigned  rather  than  serve  against  the  Ulster 
Protestants,  the  British  government  being  constantly 
advised  in  public  speeches  that  Northeast  Ulster  cared 
nothing  for  the  law  or  the  constitution.  Contempt 
for  the  government,  in  fact,  was  expressed  by  nearly 
every  leading  Unionist.  As  Lord  Birkenhead,  then  F. 
E.  Smith,  summarized  it :  "You  are  dealing  with  a  gov- 
ernment which  understands  one  argument — the  argu- 
ment of  force." 
"D'inrr  ofit  fmfeildjd.r.1  y-,  ** 

These  were  dangerous  words  to  bandy  in  Ireland,  and 
they  were  not  wasted  on  the  Republicans,  the  Irish 
Revolutionary  Brotherhood,  the  Sinn  Fein  advocates 
and  the  labor  forces  in  the  South.  For  a  long  time  the 
rank  and  file  of  the  nationalists  could  not  believe  that 
the  Ulstermen  were  really  importing  cannon,  machine 
guns  and  rifles.  "King  Carson"  was  jeered  at,  and 
the  cabinet  was  echoed  when  it  cried,  "opera  bouife." 
But  while  the  Ulster  rebellion  was,  no  doubt,  a  staged 
hold-up  by  which  the  Liberals  were  to  yield  reluctantly 
to  the  partition  of  Ireland  under  the  threat  of  civil  war, 
the  fraud  required  for  its  effectiveness  the  use  of 
genuine  military  properties,  and  this  was  all  that  was 
needed  by  the  radical  nationalists  in  the  South. 

365 


The  Story  of  the  Irish  Nation 

The  fact  was  indisputable  that  Carson  had  made  ar- 
rangements for  a  provisional  government,  that  £1,- 
000,000  had  been  publicly  appropriated  for  Volunteer 
widows  and  orphans,  that  the  British  League  for 
the  Support  of  Ulster  was  active,  that  Carson  gloried 
in  the  fact  that  "the  Volunteers  are  illegal,  and  the 
government  know  they  are  illegal,  and  the  government 
dare  not  interfere  with  them."  These  concessions  to 
style  might  or  might  not  be  preliminary  to  a  Liberal 
betrayal  of  John  Redmond  on  the  plea  of  avoiding 
the  horrors  of  civil  war.  They  established  the  prece- 
dents, at  any  rate,  for  which  radical  nationalists 
had  long  been  waiting,  never  daring  to  hope  or  dream 
that  the  grammar  of  anarchy  would  be  supplied  by  the 
Tories,  the  army  and  the  lords. 

As  soon  as  the  British  government  saw  that  the  South 
of  Ireland  was  going  to  copy  Carson  they  prohibited 
the  import  of  arms.  But  there  had  been  a  horrible 
strike  in  1913,  in  which  the  Dublin  employers  had 
banded  together  to  break  down  the  unionizing  of  labor, 
and  Jim  Larkin  elected  to  form  a  Citizen  Army  for 
Irish  Workers  "by  taking  a  leaf  out  of  the  book  of 
Carson."  The  founding  of  the  Irish  National  Volun- 
teers, November,  1913,  under  the  leadership  of  Eoin 

366 


The  Coming  of  Sinn  Fein 

MacNeill,  vice-president  of  the  Gaelic  League,  had 
the  effect  of  slowing  down  the  formation  of  this  Citizen 
Army.  But  within  a  few  months,  under  Captain  White 
and  Madame  Markievicz,  the  body  was  well  organized 
on  Carsonian  lines.  By  June,  1914,  the  Southern 
Volunteers  were  estimated  at  80,000,  as  against  84,- 
000  Ulster  Volunteers;  and  by  July  9,  1914,  they  were 
reckoned  by  the  police  to  number  132,000,  of  whom 
40,000  were  army  reservists.  This  retort  to  Carson 
created  an  interesting  situation. 

15 

It  was  a  situation  in  which  John  Redmond  as  a 
professed  constitutionalist  felt  obliged  to  act.  He 
knew  that  if  the  Volunteer  movement  proceeded  inde- 
pendently of  his  party  his  power  in  Ireland  was  gone 
forever,  and  he  at  once  negotiated  with  Eoin  Mac- 
Neill and  Sir  Roger  Casement  for  a  share  in  the  control 
of  the  Volunteers.  Eight  of  the  provisional  committee, 
including  Pearse,  resigned  when  Redmond's  nominees 
were  accepted.  But  it  was  only  a  question  of  a  few 
months  when  the  body  split  into  two  sections:  the 
National  or  Redmond  Volunteers  and  the  Irish  or 
Sinn  Fein  Volunteers. 

367 


The  Story  of  the  Irish  Nation 

Three  events  in  July,  1914,  helped  to  precipitate 
the  situation  which  British  politics  had  created  in 
Ireland. 

On  July  10,  armed  Ulster  Volunteers  marched 
through  Belfast,  and  Sir  Edward  Carson  held  the  first 
meeting  of  his  provisional  government. 

On  July  24,  Mr.  Asquith,  the  prime  minister,  an- 
nounced that  the  Buckingham  Palace  conference  on  the 
partition  of  Ireland  had  failed.  "The  possibility  of 
defining  an  area  for  exclusion  from  the  operation  of 
the  Government  of  Ireland  Bill  was  considered,  and 
the  Conference  being  unable  to  agree  either  in  prin- 
ciple or  in  detail  on  such  an  area,  it  concluded." 

On  July  26,  the  British  troops  (King's  Own  Scottish 
Borderers)  killed  three  persons  and  wounded  thirty-two 
in  Bachelor's  Walk,  Dublin,  on  returning  from  their 
futile  attempt  to  stop  the  gun-running  at  Howth. 

These  three  events  did  much  to  disillusion  even 
moderate  home  rulers  with  the  British  government. 
The  successful  gun-running  in  the  North  had  taken 
place  with  the  probable  connivance  of  the  authorities. 
In  the  South  it  had  led  to  the  killing  of  innocent  per- 
sons. The  defiant  attitude  of  Carson  and  the  establish- 
ment of  his  provisional  government  had  involved  noth- 
ing more  terrible  than  a  conference  with  the  King  at 

368 


The  Coming  of  Sinn  Fein 

Buckingham  Palace.  And  out  of  this  conference  had 
come  the  news  that  Carson  would  not  accept  Redmond's 
concession  of  four  Ulster  counties.  In  addition  he 
wanted  Tyrone  and  Fermanagh  to  be  excluded  from 
home  rule,  even  though  the  nationalists  were  in  a 
majority  in  those  two  counties. 

This  Tory  position  was  consecrated  by  the  Liberals 
some  weeks  after  the  European  war  had  broken  out 
when,  on  September  18,  the  home  rule  bill  was  signed 
but  its  amendment  arranged  for  and  its  operation  in- 
definitely suspended. 


369 


CHAPTER  XII 

THE    IRISH   REPUBLIC 


WITH  the  outbreak  of  the  European  war  John 
Redmond  did  not  wait  an  instant  to  consult 
the  will  of  Ireland.  "I  honestly  believe,"  he  told  the 
house  of  commons  on  August  4,  1914,  "that  the  democ- 
racy of  Ireland  will  turn  with  the  utmost  anxiety  and 
sympathy  to  this  country  in  every  trial  and  danger 
with  which  she  is  faced." 

Believing  that  the  home  rule  act  was  Ireland's  magna 
charta,  John  Redmond  did  not  hesitate  for  a  second  to 
haggle  because  it  was  amended  or  suspended.  In  the 
hour  of  Britain's  urgent  need  he  committed  himself  and 
Ireland  as  deeply  as  possible  on  the  side  of  the  Allies. 
He  made  up  his  mind  at  once,  and  never  altered  it,  to 
recruit  for  Britain  among  Irish  nationalists,  and  he 
gladly  and  proudly  saw  his  son  and  his  brother  join 
the  British  army  and  go  to  France. 

This  pledge  of  loyalty  from  John  Redmond  was 
hailed  with  delight  by  Englishmen  in  politics  and  out  of 

370 


The  Irish  Republic 

politics,  and  it  netted  50,000  Irish  Nationalist  fighting 
men  within  a  year.  But  the  guarantees  which  it  drew 
from  Asquith,  the  prime  minister,  in  regard  to  a  dis- 
tinctively Irish  corps  and  in  regard  to  the  use  of  the 
National  Volunteers  for  home  defense  were  never  lived 
up  to.  Instead  the  pro-war  Irish  were  deeply  dis- 
trusted by  Kitchener,  and,  in  Lloyd  George's  phrase, 
were  treated  with  a  stupidity  which  sometimes  almost 
looked  like  malignancy.  The  truth  of  Redmond's 
loyalty  to  Britain  was  only  apparent  to  men  like 
Pearse  and  MacNeill  who  split  away  in  disgust  from 
his  organization  of  National  Volunteers. 

Sinn  Fein,  the  Republicans  and  the  Citizen  Army  did 
not  espouse  the  cause  of  the  Allies.  The  intimation 
that  Britain  was  engaged  in  fighting  for  the  rights  of 
small  nations  left  critical  Irishmen  singularly  cold. 
The  statement  of  the  Liverpool  Post  in  September, 
1914,  that  "the  capture  of  the  German  trade  is  almost 
as  vital  to  the  existence  of  the  Empire  as  the  destruc- 
tion of  Prussian  militarism"  was  treasured  as  more  ac- 
curate than  most  of  the  stories  of  atrocities,  and 
Sinn  Fein  insisted  that  "the  fact  that  out  of  200,000 
Unionists  of  military  age  in  Ireland — men  who  talked 
Empire,  sang  Empire  and  protested  they  would  die 
for  the  British  Empire — four  out  of  every  five  are  still 

371 


The  Story  of  the  Irish  Nation 

at  home,  declaring  they  will  not  have  home  rule,  is  proof 
that  the  Irish  Unionist  knows  his  present  business." 
These  sharp  comments,  however,  did  not  represent  the 
current  popular  feeling  in  the  South  of  Ireland.  Out 
of  170,000  National  Volunteers,  according  to  Stephen 
Gwynn,  "only  a  trifle  over  12,000  adhered  to  Professor 
MacNeill.  But  in  Dublin  the  opponents  were  nearly 
2,000  out  of  6,700;  and  two  strong  battalions  went 
almost  solid  against  Redmond." 

The  "raising  of  the  Irish  Brigades,"  as  Mr.  Gwynn 
calls  it,  kept  John  Redmond  busy  in  spite  of  such  in- 
sults to  national  Ireland  as  the  accession  of  Sir  Edward 
Carson  to  the  cabinet.  But  no  recruiting  campaign 
could  alter  the  drift  of  radical  feeling.  That  feeling 
was  impatient  from  the  start  of  Britain's  pretensions 
in  the  war.  The  suppression  of  nationalist  weeklies, 
the  deporting  of  Volunteer  organizers  and  the  imprison- 
ment of  an  anti-militarist  like  Sheehy-Skeffington 
simply  added  to  the  intense  conviction  that  unless 
some  positive  step  was  taken  the  Irish  nation  would 
eventually  be  conscripted  for  imperial  purposes  and  so 
confirmed  in  subjection. 

2 

Early  in  the  war  Roger  Casement  had  gone  from 
the  United  States  to  Germany  to  procure  German  aid 

372 


The  Irish  Republic 

for  a  rising  in  Ireland.  In  this  difficult  mission,  for 
which  he  was  not  equipped  by  a  knowledge  of  the  lan- 
guage, Casement  did  not  succeed  in  convincing  the 
Germans  of  Ireland's  military  importance,  nor  did 

Y'i  ho'-on/.     .r.n 


Roger  David   Casement 


he  convince  himself  of  German  sympathy  or  under- 
standing. Early  in  1916,  indeed,  he  made  up  his  mind 
that  the  Germans  were  anxious  to  provoke  a  hopeless 
rebellion  in  Ireland  merely  for  the  sake  of  creating  a 

373 


The  Story  of  the  Irish  Nation 

temporary  "diversion,"  and  he  resolved  to  stop  it  if 
possible,  since  the  only  aid  he  could  secure  from  Ger- 
many was  a  consignment  of  Russian  rifles. 

On  Good  Friday,  1916,  Roger  Casement  landed  on 
the  coast  of  Kerry,  with  two  companions.  Arrested  by 
stupid  mischance,  he  was  taken  to  the  tower  of  London, 
but  not  before  he  conveyed  word  to  MacNeill  to  call 
off  the  rising. 

On  Easter  Monday,  1916,  however,  the  Volunteer 
forces  in  Dublin,  under  Pearse,  and  the  Citizen  Army, 
under  James  Connolly,  seized  the  strategic  points  in 
the  city  and  from  the  Post  Office  proclaimed  the  Irish 
Republic. 

From  Monday,  April  24,  to  Sunday,  April  30, 
various  detachments  of  the  small  Republican  force  held 
out.  On  April  28  Pearse  declared  of  his  comrades, 
"they  have  redeemed  Dublin  from  many  shames,  and 
made  her  name  splendid  among  the  names  of  cities.'* 
And  he  added,  "I  am  satisfied  that  we  have  saved  Ire- 
land's honor."  One  name  he  mentioned  in  his  procla- 
mation. "I  will  name  only  that  of  Commandant  Gen- 
eral James  Connolly,  commanding  the  Dublin  division. 
He  lies  wounded,  but  is  still  the  guiding  brain  of  our 
resistance." 

One  of  the  last  leaders  to  surrender  was  Eamon  de 
374 


The  Irish  Republic 

Valera,  professor  of  mathematics  at  Maynooth  College, 
who  held  Boland's  Mill  until  Sunday  noon. 


3 

The  leaders  who  surrendered  to  General  Maxwell 
were  not  treated  as  prisoners  of  war.  They  were  re- 
garded as  conspirators,  rebels  and  criminals;  and  the 
soldiers,  therefore,  of  a  conquered  nation.  They  were 
court-martialled  in  batches  and  ordered  shot,  day  by 
day. 

On  May  3,  Padraic  Pearse,  Thomas  MacDonagh  and 
Thomas  J.  Clarke  were  shot  at  dawn. 

On  May  4,  Joseph  Plunkett,  Edward  Daly,  Michael 
O'Hanrahan  and  William  Pearse  were  executed. 

On  May  5,  John  MacBride  was  executed. 

On  May  7,  Cornelius  Colbert,  Edmund  Kent,  Michael 
Mallon  and  J.  J.  Heuston  were  executed. 

On  May  8,  Thomas  Kent  was  executed. 

On  May  12,  James  Connolly,  nursed  back  from  his 
wounds,  was  carried  from  an  ambulance,  and  shot. 
Sean  McDermott  was  also  shot  on  May  12. 

About  500  lives  were  lost  in  the  rising,  with  1100 
combatants  wounded. 

Roger  Casement  was  executed  in  August,  after  a 
375 


The  Story  of  the  Irish  Nation 

state  trial,  while  over  a  hundred  participants  in  the 
rising  were  given  long  terms  of  imprisonment. 


Padi-aic  H.  Pearse 


4 

The  rising  was  neither  nation-wide  nor  popular,  in 
spite  of  several  years'  recruiting  for  the  Irish  volun- 
teers. But  the  stealthy  military  executions  which 
followed  Easter  Week  struck  like  successive  blows  on 
Ireland's  imagination.  One  coming  after  another,  day 

376 


The  Irish  Republic 

after  day,  the  killing  of  these  young  men  reverberated 
through  Ireland  like  the  deliberate  accent  of  a  mighty, 
somber  bell.  It  was  the  bell  of  Ireland's  history  which 
General  Maxwell  had  tolled,  the  death-bell  of  Emmet 
and  Tone. 

To  an  Ireland  which  had  observed  the  condonation  of 
Ulster,  these  executions  opened  before  its  eyes  the 
glowing  illuminated  page  of  a  terrible  and  sacrificial 
history.  Ireland  read  again  the  names  of  glorious 
rebels  who  had  borne  their  arms  on  the  open  field.  It 
read  the  names  of  rebels  who  had  died  on  the  scaffold. 
To  those  names  it  now  added  Pearse,  MacDonagh, 
Connolly,  and  a  litany  of  others.  Labor  had  taken 
up  arms  with  Gaelic  scholarship,  and  the  statesman 
with  the  poet.  Their  crime  was  treason.  Their  crime 
was  love.  Their  crime  was  rebellion.  Their  crime 
was  the  resurrection  of  Ireland. 

Once  the  Irish  people  looked  again  to  this  past, 
across  the  abyss  of  conquest  and  confiscation,  they  real- 
ized that  they  still  formed  the  nation  which  England 
branded  as  criminal.  The  deliberate  plan  of  conquest, 
the  Elizabethan  wars,  the  settlement  of  Ulster,  Crom- 
well's savagery,  Cromwell's  confiscations,  the  broken 
treaty  of  Limerick,  the  penal  code,  the  White  Terror 
of  '98,  the  infamous  Union,  Pitt's  broken  pledge  to 

377 


The  Story  of  the  Irish  Nation 

emancipate  the  Catholics,  the  tithe  war,  the  artificial 
famine,  the  Insurrection  Acts,  the  Coercion  Acts,  the 
clearances,  the  land  war,  the  broken  pledge  of  home 
rule — this  unhappy  legend  simply  to  prove  the  truth 
of  Lincoln's  words :  "No  man  is  good  enough  to  rule 
another  man,  without  that  other  man's  consent." 

After  the  rising,  Britain  scoured  Ireland  to  find 
every  man  of  quick  national  feeling  and  spirit,  and 
obeying  the  least  hint  of  the  Royal  Irish  Constabulary 
and  the  wildest  suspicions  of  Dublin  Castle,  swept  3,000 
or  more  into  internment  camps  across  the  Irish  Sea. 
Then,  when  the  world  had  pondered  how  Francis 
Sheehy-Skeffington  had  met  his  death  during  the  rising, 
at  the  hands  of  an  officer  reputed  insane,  Asquith  set 
out  for  Ireland  to  see  what  statesmanship  could  add  to 
General  Maxwell's  contributions. 

Having  himself  made  home  rule  into  a  tragic  farce, 
having  shown  neither  character  nor  intelligence  in  his 
dealings  with  Redmond,  having  yielded  to  the  military 
on  the  executions,  Asquith  could  do  nothing  except 
make  empty  and  pretentious  proposals  which  deceived 
no  one. 

5 

The  next  great  effort  of  British  statesmanship  was 
Lloyd  George's.  Before  he  became  premier  in  Decem- 

378 


379 


The  Story  of  the  Irish  Nation 

ber  he  undertook  the  role  of  negotiating  an  Irish 
peace.  As  a  temporary  expedient,  Redmond  agreed 
to  the  exclusion  of  the  six  Ulster  counties  and  with 
the  aid  of  Devlin  secured  local  consent  to  temporary 
exclusion.  But  when  this  side  of  the  agreement  was 
completed,  Lord  Lansdowne  went  back  on  the  Unionist 
side  of  the  bargain,  and  Lloyd  George  and  Herbert 
Samuel  tried  to  corner  Redmond  into  accepting  per« 
manent  exclusion.  This  treachery  ended  Redmond  in 
Ireland,  as  his  biographer  Stephen  Gwynn  testifies. 
"We  had  incurred  the  very  great  odium  of  accepting 
even  temporary  partition — and  a  partition  which, 
owing  to  this  arbitrary  extension  of  area,  could  not 
be  justified  on  any  ground  of  principle;  we  had  in- 
volved with  us  many  men  who  voted  for  that  accept- 
ance on  the  faith  of  Redmond's  assurance  that  the 
government  were  bound  by  their  written  word ;  and  now 
weawere  thrown  over." 

Lloyd  George  as  premier,  however,  made  another 
spectacular  effort.  In  May,  1917,  he  sent  out  invita- 
tions for  a  convention  of  Irishmen  who  were  to  frame 
their  own  proposals  for  self-government,  "within  the 
Empire.'*  And  he  guaranteed  that,  "if  substantial 
agreement  should  be  reached  as  to  the  character  and 
scope  of  the  constitution  for  the  future  government 

380 


The  Irish  Republic 

of  Ireland  within  the  Empire,"  his  government  would 
give  legislative  effect  to  it. 

Under  the  chairmanship  of  Sir  Horace  Plunkett 
this  convention  sat  from  May,  1917,  to  April,  1918, 
John  Redmond  dying  in  the  course  of  its  proceedings. 
By  the  term  "within  the  Empire,"  and  by  the  fact  that 
the  delegates  were  appointed,  Sinn  Fein  was  excluded 
from  the  convention,  but  even  if  it  had  participated 
"substantial  agreement"  could  never  have  been  secured. 
The  Ulster  Unionist  Alliance  controlled  its  delegates  as 
a  body  and  had  Lloyd  George's  pledge  that  "Ulster" 
would  never  be  coerced.  The  actual  outcome  of  the 
convention  was  five  separate  reports,  the  Southern 
Unionists  agreeing  to  the  principle  of  home  rule  and 
the  Nationalists  presenting  their  case  for  a  "dominion" 
home  rule,  the  Ulster  Unionists  dissenting. 

The  findings  of  the  convention  were  hardly  in  Lloyd 
George's  hands  before  he  announced  that,  without 
regard  to  anything  else,  he  proposed  to  apply  conscrip- 
tion to  Ireland. 

No  British  proposal  could  have  had  a  more  profound 
effect  on  national  Ireland.  The  Catholic  bishops  de- 
clared the  law  was  "an  oppressive  and  unjust  law, 
which  the  Irish  people  have  a  right  to  resist  by  all 
means  consonant  with  the  law  of  God."  Several 

381 


The  Story  of  the  Irish  Nation 

Protestant  bishops  assented,  and  Sinn  Fein,  parlia- 
mentarians and  labor  united  in  pledging  themselves 
against  conscription.  The  impossibility  of  enforcing 
it  was  evident,  no  matter  what  the  need  for  men  might 
be,  and  the  discovery  of  a  famous  "German  plot," 
which  led  to  the  arrest  of  prominent  Sinn  Feiners,  in 
no  way  helped  the  government. 

6 

Not  till  the  armistice  and  the  election  which  followed 
it  was  the  victory  of  Sinn  Fein  certainly  indicated. 
But  the  1918  election  left  no  doubt.  Out  of  eighty 
nationalist  constituencies,  seventy-three  had  voted  for 
the  Irish  Republican  candidates.  On  January  21, 
1919,  these  members  met  in  Dail  Eireann  and  issued 
Ireland's  declaration  of  independence: 

"Whereas  the  Irish  people  is  by  right  a  free  people ; 

"And  whereas  for  seven  hundred  years  the  Irish 
people  has  never  ceased  to  repudiate  and  has  repeatedly 
protested  in  arms  against  foreign  usurpation; 

"And  whereas  English  rule  in  this  country  is,  and 
always  has  been,  based  upon  force  and  fraud  and  main- 
tained by  military  occupation  against  the  declared 
will  of  the  people; 

"And  whereas  the  Irish  Republic  was  proclaimed  in 
382 


The  Irish  Republic 

Dublin  on  Easter  Monday,  1916,  by  the  Irish  Repub- 
lican Army,  acting  on  behalf  of  the  Irish  people; 

"And  whereas  the  Irish  people  is  resolved  to  secure 
and  maintain  its  complete  independence  in  order  to 
promote  the  common  weal,  to  re-establish  justice,  to 
provide  for  future  defense,  to  insure  peace  at  home  and 
good  will  with  all  nations  and  to  constitute  a  national 
policy  based  upon  the  people's  will,  with  equal  right  and 
equal  opportunity  for  every  citizen, 

"And  whereas  at  the  threshold  of  a  new  era  in  his- 
tory the  Irish  electorate  has  in  the  general  election  of 
December,  1918,  seized  the  first  occasion  to  declare 
by  an  overwhelming  majority  its  firm  allegiance  to 
the  Irish  Republic; 

"Now,  therefore,  we,  the  elected  representatives  of 
the  ancient  Irish  people,  in  national  parliament  assem- 
bled, do,  in  the  name  of  the  Irish  nation,  ratify  the 
establishment  of  the  Irish  Republic  and  pledge  our- 
selves and  our  people  to  make  this  declaration  effective 
by  every  means  at  our  command. 

"To  ordain  that  the  elected  representatives  of  the 
Irish  people  alone  have  power  to  make  laws  binding 
on  the  people  of  Ireland,  and  that  the  Irish  Parliament 
is  the  only  parliament  to  which  that  people  will  give  its 
allegiance. 

383 


The  Story  of  the  Irish  Nation 

"We  solemnly  declare  foreign  government  in  Ireland 
to  be  an  invasion  of  our  national  right,  which  we  will 
never  tolerate,  and  we  demand  the  evacuation  of  our 
country  by  the  English  garrison; 

"We  claim  for  our  national  independence  the  recog- 
nition and  support  of  every  free  nation  of  the  world, 
and  we  proclaim  that  independence  to  be  a  condition 
precedent  to  international  peace  hereafter; 

"In  the  name  of  the  Irish  people  we  humbly  commit 
our  destiny  to  Almighty  God,  who  gave  our  fathers  the 
courage  and  determination  to  persevere  through  cen- 
turies of  a  ruthless  tyranny,  and  strong  in  the  justice 
of  the  cause  which  they  have  handed  down  to  us,  we 
ask  His  divine  blessing  on  this,  the  last  stage  of  the 
struggle  which  we  have  pledged  ourselves  to  carry 
through  to  freedom." 

7 

The  policy  on  which  Britain  now  embarked  was  to 
repress  the  Irish  Republic.  Denying  the  Irish  an 
opportunity  to  present  their  case  before  the  Peace 
Conference  at  Versailles,  the  British  sought  to  coerce 
the  Irish  in  a  fashion  which  they  themselves  had  repro- 
bated in  the  case  of  Northeast  Ulster.  The  Irish  Re- 

384 


The  Irish  Republic 

publicans,  however,  had  useful  armed  forces.  They 
soon  drove  the  Royal  Irish  Constabulary  into  the  larger 
towns  and  cleared  the  way  for  the  establishment  of 
arbitration  courts  and  the  functioning  of  Sinn  Fein 
officials  in  many  districts.  In  the  course  of  1919-1920 
the  number  of  British  troops  in  Ireland  was  steadily  in- 
creased, and  by  the  middle  of  1920  a  new  force  popu- 
larly known  as  the  "Black  and  Tans"  was  employed 
to  carry  out  repression  and  the  destruction  of  life 
and  property.  The  assassination  of  prominent  Re- 
publicans, the  torturing  and  murdering  of  prisoners, 
the  killing  of  innocent  men,  women,  and  children,  the 
destruction  of  houses,  villages,  and  sections  of  towns, 
the  use  of  gasoline  sprays  and  bombs  in  the  way  of  ter- 
rorism, the  burning  of  factories  and  creameries,  the 
destruction  of  crops  and  of  animals,  the  practice  of 
"reprisals" — these  were  the  distinguishing  features  of 
the  British  military  policy  in  which  about  80,000 
troops  were  eventually  employed,  using  full  war  equip- 
ment, bayonets,  rifles,  bombs,  machine  guns,  tanks  and 
airplanes. 

These  troops  might  have  cowed  an  Ireland  which 
had  not  heard  of  the  rights  of  small  nations  and  the 
principle  of  self-determination.  But  in  the  election  of 

385 


The  Story  of  the  Irish  Nation 

1918  the  Irish  people  had  overwhelmingly  affirmed  their 
independence,  and  they  were  prepared,  weak  as  they 
were,  to  wage  their  fight  for  freedom.  Nor  were  they 
the  open  enthusiasts  of  the  United  Irish  days  who  re- 
vealed all  their  plans,  nor  the  simple  men  of  Wexford 
who  rushed  to  arms  in  a  frenzy  of  indignation.  The 
Irish  Republic  had  an  educated  and  disciplined  citizen- 
ship to  rely  on.  And  it  had  paid  attention  to  the 
stern  and  bitter  words  of  Michael  Davitt  in  1899: 
"I  have  for  four  years  tried  to  appeal  to  the  sense  of 
justice  in  this  house  of  commons  on  behalf  of  Ireland. 
I  leave,  convinced  that  no  just  cause,  no  cause  of  right, 
will  ever  find  support  from  this  house  of  commons  un- 
less it  is  backed  by  force." 

Under  de  Valera  and  Griffith,  every  type  of  Irishman 
and  Irishwoman  united — the  moral-force  advocates,  the 
men  of  physical  force  who  remembered  Mitchel  and 
Tone,  the  "one  big  union"  of  labor  who  remembered 
Lalor  and  Connolly,  the  believers  in  an  ideal  Catho- 
lic state.  The  heroism  of  Terence  MacSwiney  in  his 
slow  vigil  of  death,  the  heroism  of  Michael  Collins  in 
his  swift  embassy  of  war — these  made  possible  the 
triumph  of  Ireland.  So  did  the  steadfastness  of  hunger- 
strikers,  tortured  prisoners,  occupied  areas,  a  whole 
country  coerced.  The  wickedness  of  conquest  was 

386 


The  Irish  Republic 


reenacted,  with  English  soldiers  shouting  "Halt !"  to 
Irishmen  as  in  the  days  of  Elizabeth,  and  English  mer- 
cenaries burning  houses  and  murdering  prisoners  as  in 


Eamon   de  Valera 


the  days  of  '98.  But  not  the  whole  wickedness  of  con- 
quest, not  the  war  on  the  Catholic  religion  and  the 
venom  of  the  yeoman,  not  the  quartering  of  the  sol- 
diers and  the  demonism  of  rape.  And  the  Irish  Re- 
publican Army  fought  back,  harassed  the  enemy, 

387 


The  Story  of  the  Irish  Nation 

planned  ambushes  and  carried  out  the  killing  of  hun- 
dreds of  individual  men. 

The  war  in  Ireland,  1920-21,  was  to  the  Irish  people 
an  intolerable  and  hateful  revival  of  a  conquest  steeped 
in  shame.  England,  under  the  goad  of  agitation,  had 
undone  its  work  of  confiscation.  It  had,  bit  by  bit,  un- 
latched the  Penal  Laws.  Could  England  now  have 
candor,  have  courage,  to  meet  "the  claim  of  the  Irish 
nation  whose  roots  are  in  Tara"? 

8 

In  July,  1921,  began  the  negotiations  between  Lloyd 
George  and  the  Irish  Republic. 

The  British  people  had,  in  1914,  rallied  like  one  man 
against  the  armed  invasion  of  Belgium.  They 
showed  no  such  emotion,  not  even  in  the  ranks  of 
labor,  when  their  own  army  of  occupation  held  Ireland. 
But  the  process  of  re-conquest  was  not  genuinely  sup- 
ported in  Britain.  Lloyd  George  and  Hamar  Green- 
wood could  not  go  the  limit.  The  negotiations,  there- 
fore, were  in  some  measure  a  response  to  conscience, 
though  Lloyd  George  refused  from  the  start  to  debate 
"any  abandonment,  however  informal,  of  the  principle 
of  allegiance  to  the  King,  upon  which  the  whole  fabric 

388 


The  Irish  Republic 


of  the   empire  and   every   constitution  within   it   are 
based." 

On  September  30,  1921,  de  Valera  consented  to  a 


Michael     Collins 


conference  "with  a  view  to  ascertaining  how  the  as- 
sociation of  Ireland  with  the  community  of  nations 
known  as  the  British  Empire  may  best  be  reconciled 
with  Irish  National  aspirations." 

The  treaty  of  December,  1921,  later  accepted  by  a 


389 


The  Story  of  the  Irish  Nation 

bare  majority  of  the  Dail  Eireann,  became  early  in 
1922  the  subject  of  perhaps  the  most  searching  con- 
troversy in  which  Irishmen  ever  engaged. 

9 

For  Ireland,  much  more  than  for  England,  the 
present  treaty  is  a  problem.  The  wise  Irishman  knows 
that  this  treaty  forces  him  into  an  undesired  associa- 
tion with  England.  He  also  knows  that  many  peoples 
have  lost  everything  they  desired  because  they  could 
not  read  their  fate. 

Beneath  these  modern  nations,  his  own  and  Eng- 
land's, there  still  lurks  the  savage  Northman,  the 
savage  Celt,  the  barbarous  Briton  or  Saxon,  only  a 
few  hundred  years  out  of  his  cave.  In  those  few  hun- 
dred years,  by  the  trembling  light  of  reason,  in  the 
search  for  the  good  life,  men  have  gained  a  little  se- 
curity and  civilization.  But  the  process  is  slow,  and  the 
war-mind  distorts  it.  For  a  thousand  years  Ireland 
has  been  afflicted  by  the  war-mind.  Would  it  now  be 
wise  to  engage  solely  in  the  slow,  laborious,  rational 
processes  of  peace  and  consent? 

Is  the  poem  of  Seumas  Cartan  still  worth  remem- 
bering ? 

The  Irish  nation  has  suffered.  It  can  blame  conquest, 
390 


The  Irish  Republic 

theft,  tyranny,  for  much  of  its  sufferings.  But  in  this 
world  of  half-savage,  half-reasonable,  wholly  human 
beings  it  can  only  expect  its  absolute  rights  if  it  for- 
gets its  own  humanity. 

As  Ireland  purges  itself  of  the  war-spirit,  under- 
standing its  enemies  as  well  as  fighting  them,  it  will 
see  its  way  to  accepting  or  rejecting  the  imperfect 
measure  which  its  human  agents  have  wrought. 

Perhaps  even  that  imperfect  measure  may  help  it 
to  stride  to  a  new  and  happier  history.  So  its  agents 
hoped.  And  Ireland's  history  can  scarcely  continue 
to  be  so  incomparably  unjust  and  tragic.  It  is  destined 
to  be  free,  and  to  belong  to  the  whole  world.  For  every- 
where there  are  hopes  that  attend  Ireland.  Men  look 
especially  to  those  who  have  served  the  Irish  nation  in 
its  worst  crisis — de  Valera,  Griffith,  Collins,  the  men 
and  women  of  Dail  Eireann.  These  men  and  women 
are  responsible  to  something  deeper  than  names  and 
phrases.  They  have  a  positive,  creative  task  before 
them.  They  will  be  judged  by  their  charity,  their  wise 
tolerance,  their  divination.  They  will  be  judged  above 
all  by  their  unity  as  Irishmen  for  Ireland. 


391 


BOOKS  CONSULTED 

"A  Short  History  of  the   Irish  People,"  by  Mary  Hayden  and 

G.  A.  Moonan.     Longmans. 

"A  Smaller  History  of  Ancient  Ireland,"  by  P.  W.  Joyce.    Long- 
mans. 

"Pagan  Ireland,"  by  Eleanor  Hull.     M.  H.  Gill  &  Son.  % 

"Pre-Christian  Ireland,"  by  U.  J.  Burke.     Browne  &  Nolan. 
"A    Literary    History    of    Ireland,"    by    Douglas    Hyde.      Fisher 

Unwin. 

"Phases  of  Irish  History,"  by  Eoin  MacNeill.     B.  Herder. 
"The  Making  of  Ireland,  and  Its  Undoing,"   by  Alice   Stopford 

Green.     Macmillan. 

"Strongbow's  Conquest  of  Ireland,"  edited  by  Barnard.    Putnam. 
"The  Midland  Septs  and  the  Pale,"  by  F.  R.  M.  Hitchcock.    Sealy. 
"Sir  Walter  Raleigh  in  Ireland,"  by  Pope  Hennessy.    Kegan  Paul 

Trench. 
"The  Political  History  of  England,  1066-1216,"  by  G.  B.  Adams. 

Longmans. 

"Life  of  Hugh  O'Neill,"  by  John  Mitchel.    J.  Duffy. 
"Ireland,"  by  Charles  Johnston.    John  C.  Winston. 
"Confiscation  in  Irish  History,"  by  W.  F.  T.  Butler.    Talbot  Press. 
"Ireland  the  Outpost,"  by  Grenville  A.  J.  Cole.    Oxford  University 

Press. 

"Dublin,"  by  Samuel  A.  Ossory  Fitzpatrick.     Dutton. 
"The  Scotch-Irish  in  America,"  by  Henry  Jones  Ford.    Princeton 

University  Press. 

"The  Prince,"  by  Nicolo  Macchiavelli.     Dutton. 
"O'Neill  and  Ormond,"  by  Diarmid  Coffey.     Norman  Remington. 
"Oliver  Cromwell,"  by  Samuel  Rawson  Gardiner.    Longmans. 
"Oliver  Cromwell,"  by  John  Morley.     Century. 
"The  Beginnings  of  Modern  Ireland,"  by  Philip  Wilson.     Norman 

Remington. 

"Ireland  in  the  European  System,"  by  James  Hogan.    Longmans. 
"The   Economic   Writings   of   Sir   W.    Petty,"   edited   by   Charles 

Henry  Hull.     Cambridge  University  Press. 

"The  Story  of  Mankind,"  by  H.  W.  van  Loon.     Boni  &  Liveright. 
"History  of  Western  Europe,"  by  James  Harvey  Robinson.    Gmn. 

392 


Books  Consulted 

"Ireland  under  Elizabeth  and  James  I,"  by  Arnold  Morley.    Rout- 
ledge. 

"The  Indestructible  Nation,"  by  P.  S.  O'Hegarty.    Maunsel. 
"A  Hundred  Years  of  Irish  History,"  by  R.  Barry  O'Brien. 
"Two  Centuries  of  Irish  History,"  edited  by  R.  Barry  O'Brien. 

Murray. 

"The  Legacy  of  the  Past  Years,"  by  Lord  Dunraven.  Murray. 
"A  Short  History  of  Scotland,"  by  C.  S.  Terry.  Cambridge. 
"Outlines  of  the  Industrial  History  of  Ireland,"  by  John  F.  Burke. 

Fallon  Brothers. 
"Guide  to  Celtic  Antiquities  of  the  Christian  Period,"  by  George 

Coffey.    Hodges,  Figgis. 
"Ireland,"  by  Emily  Lawless.     Putnam. 

"The  S,tory  of  Burnt  Njal,"  translated  by  G.  W.  Dasent.    Button, 
^rose  Writings  of  Swift,"  arranged  by  Walter  Lewin.     Walter 

Scott  Co. 

"A  Short  History  of  the  English  People,"  by  J.  R.  Green.    Harper. 
"The  Economic  History  of  Ireland  in  the  Seventeenth  Century," 

by  George  O'Brien.    Maunsel. 
"Ireland  in  the  Eighteenth  Century,"  by  W.  E.   H.  Lecky,  five 

volumes.    Appleton. 

"The  Great  Fraud  of  Ulster,"  by  T.  M.  Healy.    M.  H.  Gill  &  Son. 
"The   Constitutional  and    Parliamentary   History  of  Ireland   Till 

the  Union,"  by  J.  G.  Swift  MacNeill.     Talbot  Press. 
"A  Constitutional  History  of  England,"  by  G.  B.  Adams.    Holt. 
"State   Policy   in    Irish  Education,   1536-4816,"   by   T.   Corcoran. 

Longmans. 
"A  Hidden  Phase  of  American  History,"  by  M.  J.  O'Brien.    Dodd, 

Mead. 

"The  Evolution  of  Sinn  Fein,"  by  R.  M.  Henry.    Talbot  Press. 
"The  Viceroy's  Post  Bag,"  by  Michael  MacDonagh.    Murray. 
"Leaders  of  Public  Opinion  in  Ireland,"  by  W.  E.  H.  Lecky,  two 

volumes.    Longmans. 
"The  Economic  History  of  Ireland  in  the  Eighteenth  Century,"  by 

George  O'Brien.     Maunsel. 
"The  Autobiography  of  Wolfe  Tone,"  edited  by  R.  Barry  O'Brien. 

Fisher  Unwin. 

"The  War  in  Wexford,"  by  Wheeler  and  Broadley.    John  Lane. 
"Main  Currents  in  Nineteenth  Century  Literature,"  Vol.  IV,  by 

Georg  Brandes.     Macmillan. 

"Essays  Relating  to  Ireland,"  by  C.  Litton  Falkiner.     Longmans. 
"Pitt,"  by  Lord  Rosebery.     Macmillan. 
"The  Rise  and  Fall  of  the  Irish  Nation,"  by  Sir  Jonah  Barrington. 

Duffy. 
"Letters  from  an  American  Farmer,"  by  J.  H.  St.  John  de  Creve- 

cceur.     Dutton. 

393 


The  Story  of  the  Irish  Nation 

"Ireland  From  '98-'98,"  by  W.  O'Connor  Morris.     Innes. 

"A  Consideration  of  the  State  of  Ireland  in  the  Nineteenth  Cen- 
tury," by  G.  Locker  Lampson.  Button. 

"The  Fall  of  Feudalism  in  Ireland,"  by  Michael  Davitt.     Harpers. 

"Michael  Davitt,"  by  F.  Sheehy  Skeffington.     Fisher  Unwin. 

"The  History  of  Landholding  in  Ireland,"  by  Joseph  Fisher.  Long- 
mans. 

"Life  of  Gladstone,"  by  John  Morley,  three  volumes.     Macmillan. 

"The  Life  of  Parnell,"  by  R.  Barry  O'Brien.     Harper. 

"The  Parnell  Movement,"  by  T.  P.  O'Connor.     Cassell. 

"Labour  in  Ireland,"  by  James  Connolly.     Maunsel. 

"Cooperation  and  Nationality,"  by  G.  W.  Russell.  (^E.)     Maunsel. 

"The  Irish  Convention  and  Sinn  Fein,"  by  Wells  and  Marlowe. 
Maunsel. 

"Resurrection  of  Hungary,"  by  Arthur  Griffith.     Whelan. 

"The  Irish  Labor  Movement,"  by  W.  P.  Ryan.     Huebsch. 

"Contemporary  Ireland,"  by  L.  Paul-Dubois.     Baker  &  Taylor. 

"The  Life  of  John  Redmond,"  by  Warre  B.  Wells.     Doran. 

"Ireland's  Literary  Renaissance,"  by  E.  A.  Boyd.     Lane. 

"Wakeman's  Irish  Antiquities,"  edited  by  John  Cooke.  Hodges, 
Figgis. 

"Report  of  the  American  Commission  on  Conditions  in  Ireland." 

"John  Redmond's  Last  Years,"  by  Stephen  Gwynn.     Longmans. 

"The  Unbroken  Tradition,"  by  Nora  Connolly,  Boni  and  Liveright. 

"A  Handbook  for  Rebels,"  compiled  by  Thomas  Johnson.   Maunsel. 

"The  Story  of  the  Irish  Citizen  Army,"  by  P.  O'Cathasaigh. 
Maunsel. 

"The  Resurrection  of  Hungary,"  by  Arthur  Griffith.     Whelan. 

"The  Irish  Rebellion  of  1916,"  edited  by  Maurice  Joy.  Devin- 
Adair  Co. 


394 


CENSUS.   YEAR                    '           1 

POPULATION 

1841    1851    1861    1871    1881    1891    1901    1911    1921] 

8,000,000 
7,000,000 
6,000,000 
5,000,000 
4,000,000 
3,000,000 
2,000,000 
1,000,000 

H 

IRELAND 

--  >,  s&msa 

- 

1 

Drawn  by  J.  D.  Hackett 


395 


INDEX 


Agrarian  Societies:  Whiteboys, 
183;  Oakboys,  184;  Hearts-of- 
Steel  Boys,  184;  Defenders, 
212;  Peep  o'  Day  Boys,  212; 
Ribbonmen,  273. 

Allen,  Larkin  and  O'Brien:  178. 

Ancient  Order  of  Hibernians: 
355. 

Anglo-Irish  Ascendancy:  be- 
gun, 169;  its  Protestant  tone, 
199;  inflamed,  231-232;  domi- 
nates administration,  239-240; 
last  stand,  363. 

"Ardagh"   chalice:   51. 

Asquith,  H.  H.:  378. 


B 


Bachelor's  Walk:  affray  in.  368. 
Benburb:  126. 
"Black  and  Tans":  385. 
Boyne,  battle  of  the:  158. 
Brandes,   Georg:   quoted   as   to 

1798,   215. 
Brehon   law:    32-34. 
Brian  Boru:  at  Clontarf,  56-59; 

rule  of,  60. 
Bruce,    Edward:    high-king    of 

Ireland,   93;   killed,   94. 
Butt,    Isaac:    292-293. 


Carson,  Sir  Edward:  354,  363. 

Cartan,  Shemus:  poem  trans- 
lated by  Lady  oregory,  105. 

Casement,  Sir  Roger:  goes  to 
Germany,  373;  captured,  374; 
executed,  375. 

Castlereagh :  as  corruptionist, 
235-237. 

Catholic  Emancipation:  be- 
trayed by  Pitt,  247;  passed, 
248-250. 

Catholics:  their  timidity,  199- 
200;  organized  by  Tone,  230. 

Celt:  origin  of,  8. 

Church:  early  independence  of, 
41-42;  ends  raids  on  Britain, 
51 ;  subordinated  to  Normans, 
67;  Papal  Bull  Laudabiliter, 
74;  Synod  of  Clonmel,  75; 
Penal  laws,  162-168;  aids 
common  people,  173-174;  sup- 
ports Union,  233;  during 
famine,  265;  under  Cardinal 
Cullen,  272;  condemns  Land 
League,  304;  denounces  Par- 
nell,  318;  cooperates  with 
Gladstone  against  Parnell, 
326 ;  against  conscription, 
375.  See  Catholic  emancipa- 
tion, Catholics,  Tithes. 

Citizen  Army:  366;  374. 


397 


Index 


Clontarf :  56-58. 

Clyn,  Friar  John:  quoted,  94. 

Coercion   acts:   280-281. 

Collins,   Michael:   386. 

Columbanus:   48. 

Columcille:  48,  52. 

Confiscations:  under  Mary,  118; 
under  Elizabeth,  124;  under 
James  I,  131-139;  under 
Cromwell,  152-154;  under 
William  III,  162. 

Connolly,  James:  his  career, 
361-362;  bravery,  374;  exe- 
cuted, 375. 

Cooperation.  See  Horace  Plun- 
kett. 

Cornwallis:  admits  outrages, 
224-225 ;  captures  Humbert, 
225;  dislikes  corruption,  234- 
237. 

Councils   Bill:  351. 

Cromwell,  Oliver:  arrives  Ire- 
land, 146;  campaign,  146-150; 
confiscations,  150-154. 

Curlews,  battle  of  the:  127. 


D 


Dail     Eireann:     first    meeting, 

383. 

Danes.      See    Vikings. 
Davies,    Sir   John:   confiscation 

policy,  139. 
Davis,     Thomas.       See     Young 

Ireland. 
Davitt,  Michael:  his  career,  299; 

meets     Parnell,     300;     meets 

Devoy,    302;    land    agitation, 

304-308 ;     criticizes     farmers, 

346. 


de     Barri,     Gerald:     describes 

Normans,  78. 
Derbfine:  18. 

Desmond,  earl  of:  123-124. 
de  Valera,  Eamon:  375. 
Devoy,  John:  works  with  Davitt, 

297-298;    on    revolution,    355- 

356. 

Diamond,  battle  of  the:  212. 
Drogheda  massacre:   146-149. 
Druids:  31-32. 
Dublin   Castle:   239-240. 

E 

Education:  proselytizing  in, 
174;  primary  system  of,  253- 
254;  Young  Ireland  and,  263; 
funds  for,  286;  university 
bill,  287;  Davitt  criticizes, 
346-348 ;  national  university, 
351-352. 

Elizabeth :  applauds  conquest, 
121-122. 

Emmet,  Robert :  insurrection 
of,  240-244. 

Erigena,  John  Scotus:  48. 

F 

Famine:   in   1640-1641,   172;   in 

1846-1849,  265-270. 
Fenians:     founded,     275;     and 

Gladstone,  278-279. 
Feudalism:  introduced,  87-88. 
Firbolg:  coming  of,  6;  conquest 

of,  10;  castes  of,  14. 
Fitzgerald,  Lord  Edward:  heads 

insurrection,  218-220. 
Fitzwilliam:     lord     lieutenant, 

206-208. 


398 


Index 


"Flight    of    the    Earls."      See 

Hugh  O'Neill. 
Ford,  Henry  Jones:  quoted  as 

to  Scotch-Irish,  137-138. 
France:  at  Battle  of  the  Boyne, 

158;  helps  Wolfe  Tone,  911; 

sends    Humbert,    225;    sends 

Wolfe  Tone,  225-228. 

G 

"Gaelic  fringe":  20. 

Gaelic  League:  need  for,  338; 
started,  339-341. 

Gaelic  Revival:  341-342. 

Genealogies:  25. 

George,  Lloyd:  negotiations  of, 
380;  appoints  convention, 
380;  negotiates  with  Irish  Re- 
public, 388. 

Geraldines:  100-104;  120;  123- 
124. 

Gladstone:  on  Fenianism,  279; 
fiscal  policy  of,  284;  dises- 
tablishment, 283-286 ;  land 
policy  of,  309-311;  political 
skill  of,  312;  attempts  com- 
promise with  Tories,  319; 
introduces  home  rule,  320; 
against  Parnell,  324-327;  ca- 
reer closes,  333. 

Grattan,  Henry:  nationalism  of, 
182;  leadership,  187-188;  gra- 
titude for  "independent"  par- 
liament, 191;  leaves  parlia- 
ment in  protest,  216;  sup- 
ports Catholic  emancipation, 
247. 

Green,  Alice  Stopford:  quoted, 
95. 

Griffith,  Arthur:  357-360. 


H 

Henry  II:  aids  Dermot  Mac- 
Murrough,  69;  Papal  Bull, 
74;  in  Ireland,  75-76;  descrip- 
tion of,  79. 

Henry  VIII:  policy  of,  106-108; 
King  of  Ireland,  111. 

Home  Rule:  agitation  begins, 
291;  first  bill,  320;  second 
bill,  333;  defects,  349-350; 
third  bill,  352-353. 

Hyde,  Dr.  Douglas:  quoted, 
42-50;  president  Gaelic 
League,  338. 


Iberians:  5. 

Insurrections:  of  1641,  142;  of 
1798,  215;  of  1848,  265;  of 
1867,  277;  of  1916,  374. 


Keating,  Geoffrey:  quoted  on 
English  commentators,  142. 

Kilkenny,  Confederation  of: 
145. 

Kinsale,  siege  of:  128. 


Land  League:  founded,  308; 
suppressed,  313. 

Land  system:  defects,  257;  re- 
form begins,  287-289;  state 
purchase,  345-346. 

Land  War:  in  Ulster,  184;  in 
the  South,  313. 

Limerick,  Treaty  of:  162. 


Index 


M 

MacArt,  Cormac:  reign  of,  25; 
description  of,  27-29. 

MacCool,  Finn:  poem  by,  13. 

MacMurrough,  Art:  harries 
English,  97-98. 

MacMurrough,  Dermot:  King 
of  Leinster,  68;  seeks  Nor- 
man aid,  69;  accompanies 
Normans,  72. 

McCracken,  Henry  Joy:  exe- 
cuted, 222. 

Mitchel,  John:  Young  Irelander, 
262;  revolutionary,  264;  de- 
ported, 265. 

N 

Nation,  The:  founded,  261. 

Niall  of  the  Nine  Hostages:  26. 

Normans:  civilization  of,  63-66; 
landing  of,  71 ;  description  of, 
72-83;  effects  of  invasion,  84- 
86;  settlements  of,  89;  inter- 
marriage with  Gaels,  91 ;  101. 

O 

O'Connell,  Daniel:  opposes  Un- 
ion, 244;  youth  of,  244-246; 
Catholic  emancipation,  248- 
250;  enters  house  of  com- 
mons, 251 ;  with  Melbourne, 
253;  lord  mayor  of  Dublin, 
254;  repeal  movement,  258; 
end  of  career,  259-260. 

O'Donnell,  Hugh  Roe:  kid- 
napped, 125;  joins  Hugh 
O'Neill,  126;  assassinated, 
128. 


O'Donnell,  Manus:  116. 

O'Donnell,  Rory:  flight  of,  129- 
130. 

O'Neill,  Con:  becomes  earl,  111; 
fights  heir,  116. 

O'Neill,  Hugh:  plans  war,  125; 
success,  126;  failure,  128; 
flight,  129-130. 

O'Neill,  Owen  Roe:  general, 
143-146;  usages  in  war,  149. 

O'Neill,  Shane:  117. 

Orangemen:  founded,  212. 

Ormonde,  James,  Duke  of: 
Royalist  general,  145-146;  in- 
dustrial plans  of,  176. 

O'Shea,  Katherine:  317-318. 
See  Parnell. 


Parliament.  See  Political  Struc- 
ture. 

Parliamentary  party.  See  Par- 
nell, Davitt,  Redmond. 

Parnell,  Charles  Stewart :  enters 
public  life,  293;  policy,  294- 
297;  obstructionist,  303-304; 
land  agitation,  306;  in  jail, 
314;  cooperates  with  Glad- 
stone, 320;  "Times"  Commis- 
sion, 322 ;  O'Shea  divorce  case, 
323;  last  fight,  327-329;  ef- 
fects of  his  career,  332-334. 
See  Katherine  O'Shea. 

Patrick,  Saint:  30;  confession 
of,  35-39;  mission  of,  40-41. 

Pearse,  Padraic:  and  Gaelic 
League,  342-343 ;  supports 
home  rule,  356;  leads  rising, 
374. 


400 


Index 


"Penal  Code":  enacted,  162-168; 
relaxed,  183. 

Pension  List:  abuses  of,  179. 

Petty,  Sir  William:  estimates 
population,  150,  155. 

Phoenix  Park  murders:  315-316. 

Picts:  5. 

Pitt:  desires  Union,  204-205;  re- 
calls Fitzwilliam,  208;  passes 
Union,  234-237 ;  betrays  Cath- 
olic emancipation,  247. 

"Plan  of  Campaign":  321. 

Plunkett,  Sir  Horace:  coopera- 
tive movement,  347;  presides 
over  convention,  381. 

Plunkett,  Saint  Oliver:  exe- 
cuted, 157. 

Political  structure :  pentarchy, 
24;  struggle  for  high-king- 
ship, 53;  "Kings  with  opposi- 
tion," 61 ;  Norman  parliament, 
91 ;  Gaelic  unity,  92 ;  parlia- 
ment of  1689,  158;  Anglo- 
Irish  parliament,  177-183;  "in- 
dependent" parliament,  187- 
188;  limits  to  "independence," 
192-194. 

Poyning's  Act:  100,  175. 

Pre-Celts:  5.     See  Firbolg. 

Pretani:  20. 


R 


Raid  of  Cooley:  14. 

Raleigh,  Sir  Walter:  121-122. 

Redmond,  John:  344;  against 
separation,  350;  third  home 
rule  bill,  352 ;  Volunteers  con- 
trolled by,  366;  supports  Eu- 
ropean war,  370;  tricked  by 
Lloyd  George,  380. 


Reformation:  under  Henry 
VIII,  108;  under  Elizabeth, 
118. 

Richard  II:  97. 

Roman  Empire:  and  Gaels,  23. 

Roosevelt:  on  Cromwell,  148- 
149. 


Scandinavians.    See  Vikings. 

Schools  and  Scholars:  early 
work  of,  42-50;  in  twelfth 
century,  67;  at  Oxford,  95. 

Scoti:  21. 

Sheares,  John  and  James:  exe- 
cuted, 221. 

"Silken  Thomas":  rebellion  of, 
103;  execution  of,  104. 

Sinn  Fein,  founded,  357.  See 
Arthur  Griffith. 

Smerwick  massacre:  120-122. 

Spain:  helps   Ireland,  120,  128. 

Spenser,  Edmund:  describes 
conquest  of  Munster,  123. 

Stephens,  James:  275-277. 

"Strongbow":  71,  78. 

Swift,  Dean:  describes  Irish 
misery,  169-171;  political 
ideals  of,  178. 


"Tara"  brooch:  51. 

Tithes:  injustice  of,  255;  agita- 
tion against,  256;  removed, 
285. 

Tone,  Wolfe:  describes  condi- 
tions, 196-198;  as  to  "inde- 
pendent"' parliament,  200; 


401 


Index 


secretary  Catholic  Committee, 
203;  separatist,  210-212;  ob- 
jects, 214;  captured  and  exe- 
cuted, 225-228. 

"To  Hell  or  Connacht":  153. 

Towns:  founded  by  Anglo-Nor- 
mans, 96;  depletion,  154. 

Trade:  1200-1600,  95;  British 
destruction  of,  175-176;  em- 
bargoes, 185;  restraints  and 
the  Pitt  treaty,  201-204. 


U 


Ui  Neill:  53. 

Ulster:  clearances  in,  134;  Scot- 
tish settlers  in,  137;  insur- 
rection of  1641,  142;  republi- 
canism in,  209;  bitterness  of, 
232;  Tory  control  of,  353; 
in  rebellion,  363-365;  seeks 
partition,  368-369. 

United  Irishmen:  pro-French, 
190;  spiritual  origins,  201; 
program  of,  206;  activity  of, 


209;  helped  by  Orange  fe- 
rocity, 214;  plan  insurrection, 
218. 

Union,  the:  desired  by  Pitt, 
204-205;  carried,  233-237; 
Act,  238-239. 


Vikings:   first   raids   of,  54-55; 

Clontarf,  56. 
Volunteers:  in  1779,  185-188;  in 

Ulster,  365-366;  in  the  South. 

366-367. 

W 

Wentworth:  economic  policy  of 

140-141. 
Wexford:  rising  in,  222-224. 


Yellow  Ford:  126. 
Young  Ireland:  261-265. 


402 


O  K  I  II  O  O  K  S 


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7.  The  Hard-Boiled,  Virgin 

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28.  Margaret  Fuller 

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3 1 .  Wonder  Book  of  Chemistry 

32.  Why  Men  Fight 

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Hamilton  and  MacGowan 

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Frank   Harris 

Leo  Perutz 
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